1243
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
2
3
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
5
6
7
8
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 March 12, 2026
11 11:05 a.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 SENATOR JEREMY COONEY, Acting President
19 ALEJANDRA N. PAULINO, ESQ., Secretary
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
3 Senate will come to order.
4 I ask everyone to please rise and
5 recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
6 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
7 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
8 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: In the
9 absence of clergy, let us bow our heads in a
10 moment of silent reflection or prayer.
11 (Whereupon, the assemblage respected
12 a moment of silence.)
13 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Reading
14 of the Journal.
15 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
16 Wednesday, March 11, 2026, the Senate met
17 pursuant to adjournment. The Journal of Tuesday,
18 March 10, 2026, was read and approved. On
19 motion, the Senate adjourned.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Without
21 objection, the Journal stands approved as read.
22 Presentation of petitions.
23 Messages from the Assembly.
24 Messages from the Governor.
25 Reports of standing committees.
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1 Reports of select committees.
2 Communications and reports from
3 state officers.
4 Motions and resolutions.
5 Senator Gianaris.
6 SENATOR GIANARIS: Good morning,
7 Mr. President.
8 Let me begin by reminding my
9 colleagues that today is an important day in this
10 chamber. Of course I'm speaking of the fact that
11 it's Senator Andy Lanza's birthday today.
12 (Laughter; applause.)
13 SENATOR GIANARIS: Always
14 celebrates his birthday with the passage of the
15 one-house budget.
16 But not to diminish Senator Lanza's
17 birthday, but now he has to share it with
18 Senator Zellner, Senator Jeremy Zellner, who's
19 new to this chamber, but also has a birthday
20 today.
21 (Applause.)
22 SENATOR GIANARIS: Not Jeremy
23 Cooney, nor Zellnor Myrie, but Jeremy Zellner.
24 Don't be confused.
25 (Laughter.)
1246
1 SENATOR GIANARIS: Okay, motions.
2 Mr. President, on behalf of
3 Senator Mayer, I wish to call up Senate Print
4 524, recalled from the Assembly, which is now at
5 the desk.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
7 Secretary will read.
8 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
9 201, Senate Print 524, by Senator Mayer, an act
10 to amend the Penal Law.
11 SENATOR GIANARIS: Move to
12 reconsider the vote by which the bill was passed.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
14 Secretary will call the roll on reconsideration.
15 (The Secretary called the roll.)
16 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 55.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The bill
18 is restored to its place on the Third Reading
19 Calendar.
20 SENATOR GIANARIS: I offer the
21 following amendments.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
23 amendments are received.
24 SENATOR GIANARIS: On behalf of
25 Senator Skoufis, on page 15 I offer the following
1247
1 amendments to Calendar 323, Senate Print 15, and
2 ask that said bill retain its place on
3 Third Reading Calendar.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
5 amendments are received, and the bill will retain
6 its place on the Third Reading Calendar.
7 SENATOR GIANARIS: Mr. President,
8 there's a privileged resolution at the desk,
9 Senate Resolution 1722, by Majority Leader
10 Stewart-Cousins. Please take that up and read
11 its title.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
13 Secretary will read.
14 THE SECRETARY: Resolution 1722, by
15 Senator Stewart-Cousins: Resolution in response
16 to the 2026-2027 Executive Budget submission.
17 SENATOR GIANARIS: Mr. President,
18 this is the Senate's one-house budget resolution.
19 By agreement with the Minority, debate will be
20 limited to two hours. It will be strictly
21 enforced.
22 Our Finance chair, Senator Krueger,
23 will lead the debate for the Majority.
24 And we are ready to begin.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
1248
1 O'Mara, why do you rise?
2 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you,
3 Mr. President.
4 I'm wondering if Senator Krueger
5 would yield for some questions on this one-house
6 budget proposal.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
8 Krueger, do you yield?
9 SENATOR KRUEGER: I live to yield
10 to Senator O'Mara. Thank you.
11 (Laughter.)
12 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
13 Senator yields.
14 SENATOR O'MARA: That's a little
15 concerning --
16 (Laughter.)
17 SENATOR O'MARA: -- but we'll
18 proceed anyways. Thank you, Senator.
19 The one-house budget that we have
20 before us here, it's very concerning to me in the
21 increase in spending that we have here,
22 considering that the Governor increased the
23 budget from last year by a little over $7 billion
24 for this year, and now this one-house adds and
25 antes that up to $11.5 billion in overall
1249
1 spending over last year, far outpacing the rate
2 of inflation in the state -- or doubling the rate
3 of inflation, anyways.
4 But the more concerning part is the
5 state operating funds portion of this budget.
6 The state operating funds are increasing over
7 $16 billion, and that's -- state operating funds
8 are the funds that we generate in the state with
9 our own revenue sources, not flowing from the
10 federal government.
11 That's about an 11 percent increase
12 in spending. That is over 4.5 times the rate of
13 inflation. How can we justify this type of
14 increase in spending in the state budget overall?
15 And how is this sustainable for New Yorkers in
16 the affordability of living in New York State?
17 SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you,
18 Mr. President.
19 So I'll start out by pointing out
20 we've lost 9 billion in federal funds since the
21 year before. Thank you, Donald Trump. And so of
22 course we still have to make sure we are funding
23 those programs.
24 And so we have to deal with the
25 reality that once -- what was once federal money
1250
1 coming into our state, often even bypassing our
2 specific budget, but going into our communities,
3 is no longer going into our communities. And so
4 they are crying out for us to help them through
5 the state budget. So that's, I guess, more than
6 half the question just there.
7 Then, while there is an inflation
8 number, inflation often runs behind. And what it
9 doesn't factor in, which we also have to
10 confront, is that costs since a year ago seem to
11 have gone up 20 percent, much due to these
12 tariffs -- again, thank you, Donald Trump -- that
13 in fact the courts have now ruled are illegal.
14 And yet the consumers have had to pay that cost
15 in all kinds of ways.
16 And even though the federal
17 government's now been told they're supposed to
18 give us that money back, nobody has any idea if
19 they ever will and how they will. We just know
20 that the costs are skyrocketing for every
21 consumer in New York specifically because of
22 federal decisions.
23 And we don't assume that those
24 costs are going down, even though the tariffs
25 have to stop, because when do companies raise
1251
1 their prices and then reduce them later? They
2 just don't.
3 So everyone's costs are going up.
4 Therefore, there are more demands on the State of
5 New York to come through for our citizens and our
6 communities. And until this insane set of
7 policies stop continuing at the federal level, I
8 feel that this is going to continue to grow.
9 The most obvious new example is the
10 war in Iran, the impacts already on the cost of
11 oil. I will quote a staffer who was driving up
12 to Albany on Monday, we happened to be talking on
13 the phone on business, and they said: "You know,
14 I really have to fill my car up before I get to
15 Albany because if I wait till Thursday or Friday,
16 it will probably have gone up another 40 cents a
17 gallon and I can't afford that."
18 I won't name the staffer. But I
19 believe that that's exactly right. At the rate
20 the cost of oil is going up, thanks again to I
21 believe very bad federal policy, we're going to
22 just have to keep confronting new surprise cost
23 increases. And we, the State of New York, are
24 going to need to address those as best we can.
25 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you,
1252
1 Senator. And I'm glad you brought up the actions
2 taking place in Iran and the impacts to gas
3 prices, at least temporarily, with that, which I
4 believe in the end will be resulting in a net
5 positive for us in this country overall.
6 But, you know, just two weeks ago --
7 actually, the morning -- later in the morning
8 after this war in Iran broke out, we had a
9 revenue consensus meeting in the state. Which,
10 for those watching, that's the Governor releases
11 the budget and then the Assembly, the Senate, and
12 the Director of Budget get together and determine
13 an estimate of how much they think the revenues,
14 extra revenues there's going to be by the end of
15 the fiscal year that we can build into this
16 budget.
17 And that revenue consensus came in
18 at $800 million, correct?
19 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes, above the
20 Governor's original proposal, yes, sir.
21 SENATOR O'MARA: Now, this
22 one-house increases spending by $5.6 billion,
23 $4.8 billion -- or $3.8 billion more than what
24 that revenue consensus is.
25 SENATOR KRUEGER: That's correct.
1253
1 SENATOR O'MARA: So how are we
2 making up that difference?
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator,
4 are you asking the Senator to yield?
5 SENATOR O'MARA: Yes, I am.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Okay.
7 SENATOR KRUEGER: And I'm yielding.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
9 you.
10 SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you.
11 Yes, those numbers are correct.
12 Frankly, we are doing this, again,
13 as a response to the first question. We need to
14 help our people more. We need to help our
15 municipalities more. And so we did increase
16 revenue in our one-house over what the Governor
17 projected.
18 That was based on a number of things
19 that I'm sure we will get into today of
20 additional taxes or additional revenue streams
21 beyond what the Governor put in her Executive
22 Budget.
23 Not because we want to. Because we
24 feel a necessity to help our municipalities and
25 our residents with crises they are now facing
1254
1 because of the -- primarily of federal actions.
2 And so it is not unusual for either
3 house's one-house each year to be higher than the
4 Governor's original proposal. And frankly, this
5 is a one-house because this is our hopes and
6 dreams of where we can get to by April 1st.
7 People who have been here a while
8 know we usually don't get there, but we try,
9 because we want to -- we want to ensure the
10 people of New York understand what realities
11 we're facing and what we're trying to get done
12 even though some of the Executive Budget will
13 change by April 1st. It will include some of the
14 things we are pushing hard for here; it won't
15 include other things.
16 But I think the question is why are
17 we doing something. And the answer is because
18 that's why we do the one-house.
19 SENATOR O'MARA: Through you,
20 Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to
21 yield.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
23 sponsor yield?
24 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes, I will.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
1255
1 sponsor yields.
2 SENATOR O'MARA: So we have a
3 variety of tax increases in this one-house
4 proposal to raise an additional $5.6 billion in
5 spending, which is I guess your wish list as the
6 Senate majority here.
7 Continuing, not allowing a business
8 tax that was going to sunset to actually sunset.
9 Not letting it go forward at the same rate
10 without sunsetting it, as the Governor proposed
11 in her budget. Yet we're increasing the taxes on
12 business in this state at a time when businesses
13 are struggling.
14 How much does that business tax
15 extension and increase, how much does that add to
16 the $5.6 billion in additional taxes we're
17 talking about here?
18 SENATOR KRUEGER: Sorry, I need my
19 glasses. The print is very small.
20 Slightly over $2 billion.
21 SENATOR O'MARA: And can you tell
22 us -- through you, Mr. President, can you tell us
23 where, then, the additional $3 billion is being
24 generated?
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
1256
1 sponsor yield?
2 SENATOR KRUEGER: Of course.
3 Another large section, $1.7 billion,
4 comes from decoupling New York State's tax
5 policies from a series of changes the Trump
6 administration created at the federal level to
7 frankly reduce costs to large businesses.
8 So we are saying no, that's not good
9 policy for New York State, we're not going to
10 remain coupled, as we have in the past. And that
11 therefore, as to our revenue, because we're not
12 deducting it a la the Trump administration's
13 model.
14 SENATOR O'MARA: Thank you,
15 Senator.
16 You know, I guess -- you know, I'm
17 at least thankful that somebody in government is
18 being responsible about spending.
19 And while, you know, there may be
20 some concerns over some actions that the
21 Trump administration has taken, it's about
22 responsibility in spending in government. It's
23 about trying to improve the economy of this
24 country. It's about trying to return
25 manufacturing to this country, which is critical,
1257
1 which we're seeing leave New York State weekly,
2 from the state to other states.
3 You know, we continue to spend more
4 and put more burdens on businesses and households
5 in just the cost of doing business, the cost of
6 utilities, the cost of taxes and every aspect of
7 life. And I'm glad you recognized in your kind
8 of initial remarks that these -- these costs do
9 get passed along by business. Because there's
10 often a feeling in this body that the Majority
11 thinks that we can just raise these things on
12 businesses and they're not passed on to
13 consumers, when they are.
14 Every action we take that increases
15 the cost of doing business doesn't mean that
16 business is just going to automatically accept
17 less profit. It means they're going to pass
18 these expenses on to New Yorkers and to
19 consumers.
20 And that's what's been impacting the
21 affordability, the lack of affordability of
22 living and doing business in this state.
23 But Senator, in addition to
24 generating this $5.6 billion in new taxes and
25 revenues for the state, you have some actions in
1258
1 here to allow New York City to increase certain
2 taxes. Primarily, a 10 percent increase on
3 unincorporated business taxes in New York City.
4 And far more concerning than that --
5 that's very concerning. Far more concerning than
6 that, even, is a 20 percent increase in tax on
7 financial services firms in New York City. At a
8 time that we're seeing job growth in the
9 financial services industry in major areas across
10 the country. Texas opening a Texas Stock
11 Exchange very soon. These jobs moving to Texas,
12 to Florida, to Tennessee. Yet we're going to
13 increase taxes on those firms by 20 percent.
14 And while at the budget hearing with
15 Mayor Mamdani, who is asking for these increases,
16 you know, they showed a distinct lack of concern
17 with financial service firms leaving New York
18 State. And as they leave and those jobs go, that
19 source of revenue for us and the city decreases.
20 What is your level of concern with
21 the financial services industries departing from
22 New York State? It makes up about 30 percent of
23 our revenues at the state, not to mention what
24 the city is generating for theirs off of it.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Did the
1259
1 sponsor yield to that question?
2 SENATOR KRUEGER: I will. Although
3 he asked a whole series of questions, so I'm
4 going to go back to the first set of questions,
5 which were not about the city tax changes but
6 overall tax proposals within this.
7 I want to point out that we tried to
8 be very careful in the taxes we decoupled from at
9 the federal level and even some taxes that do
10 have an increase for some companies at the state
11 level. These are for large corporations. A few
12 medium.
13 But we recognize the unfairness of
14 the New York State tax system because, guess
15 what, every time we do lower taxes for the
16 highest-income companies who are doing, frankly,
17 incredibly well, somebody else has to pay the
18 taxes, and it usually is the small companies.
19 And it usually is startups who are trying to move
20 from small or even one employee to a larger
21 company.
22 So we were very conscious about
23 trying to make sure that unlike the Trump
24 policies and taxes, we were not going to transfer
25 costs to our small businesses. We were going to
1260
1 try to make sure we were making our tax system
2 both progressive and fair -- and again, very
3 importantly, stopping the leakage of all tax
4 costs translating to small businesses who are
5 trying to stay in New York and grow in New York.
6 And in fact, I would argue I wish we
7 had gone much farther, and we did a little of it,
8 in challenging the kind of tax expenditures that
9 we have in our system. So if you look at our
10 state tax expenditure report, you will actually
11 be able to find pretty easily billions of dollars
12 that our largest corporations are not paying in
13 taxes in New York because they have all kinds of
14 special exemptions and credits and subsidies. I
15 think we might be the state with the largest in
16 the country at this point, to the largest
17 corporations.
18 Amazon, for example. And trust me,
19 they're going to sell to us no matter what we
20 actually make them pay fairly in their own taxes.
21 They're not leaving New York.
22 And many of the companies even that
23 the -- my colleague pointed out they could leave
24 New York, they still want to do business in
25 New York. They're still going to sell to us in
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1 New York. And so a lot of these taxes it
2 actually doesn't matter physically where their
3 locations are, they still owe us the taxes.
4 So sometimes I get told: They'll
5 leave. And you look at what the taxes are, and
6 you go, Well, guess what, you're still going to
7 have to pay those taxes. But okay, if you want
8 to double your costs by having to move everyone
9 and build new warehouses somewhere, that's your
10 business. But you're still going to sell the
11 products across the lines in New York, and we're
12 still going to tax you then.
13 So when you look at the big picture,
14 our tax policies can be so much fairer and more
15 progressive. And it absolutely helps our smaller
16 businesses, our starting-up entrepreneurs in
17 New York. Because again, when somebody over here
18 isn't paying their fair share of taxes, somebody
19 else is, usually the small guys and the
20 individuals. So I want to do something about
21 that. I want to do more about that.
22 Now to shift to the New York City
23 question, thank you.
24 So yes, the City of New York came to
25 us and said help, we need help. And they put
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1 together a very long laundry list of
2 possibilities. We said no to quite a few of the
3 proposals because we thought those were not the
4 best answers for New York City.
5 New York City would have preferred
6 we just agree to hand them the money. We do hand
7 them some money in this budget, right, because we
8 owed them this money. We never gave them AIM
9 since -- 2011? We stopped giving New York City
10 its 900 million in AIM in 2011 for a
11 financial-problem period. We promised to give it
12 back. We never gave it back.
13 We cut our reimbursement on the
14 administration of public benefits and social
15 services. We promised to give it back. We never
16 gave it back. We passed federal -- state laws at
17 the state level to change the rules in child
18 welfare programs and criminal justice programs
19 for young people and said, This will be great.
20 And then we told New York City, even
21 though you're going to end up taking the vast
22 majority of these kids and the responsibility for
23 making sure this model works well, we invented --
24 well, Governor Cuomo invented a way to claim
25 New York City wasn't eligible to even file for
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1 it. So we've owed them a huge amount of money.
2 And by the way, New York City's
3 taxpayers send so much money here that they never
4 get back. We tried to close that gap in a
5 variety of ways. And I think that's absolutely
6 fair and way overdue.
7 So we said no to the city on many
8 things. We tried to close gaps that never should
9 have been there. But yes, we did give them
10 permission to tax themselves and their
11 businesses. And frankly, I think that they will
12 think carefully about what they implement and
13 don't implement. But if we don't give them the
14 authority to do so, they can't. Because let's
15 not forget, the only tax our municipalities
16 basically can control themselves is their
17 property taxes.
18 And there are a few people who
19 suggested raising New York City's property taxes
20 by 9.5 percent. And I don't know about everybody
21 else, but if you live in New York City you really
22 can't imagine a 9.5 percent increase in our
23 property taxes. So will companies -- again,
24 they're only large companies that are impacted,
25 of 5 million or more, I believe. Do I really
1264
1 think they're going to pick up and leave New York
2 City? Some might.
3 But the research shows that large
4 corporations -- and we're talking large
5 corporations -- don't make their business
6 decisions or their location decisions based on
7 local marginal tax rates.
8 So maybe my colleague's right, this
9 will be a problem. But so far I'm not convinced.
10 And I actually have not been hearing a lot from
11 corporations that this is a problem for them.
12 Just saying.
13 Thank you.
14 SENATOR O'MARA: Through you,
15 Mr. President, if the Senator will yield.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
17 sponsor continue to yield?
18 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes.
19 SENATOR O'MARA: The authority that
20 we're giving in this one-house budget to allow
21 New York City to raise unincorporated business
22 taxes and the taxes on financial services, what
23 is the total expected revenue to be generated
24 from those actions if the city pursues them to
25 the 10 percent, 20 percent increase that you want
1265
1 to authorize them to do?
2 SENATOR KRUEGER: So the tax
3 increases that we're giving the city permission
4 to do total 3.1 billion.
5 I don't have a breakdown between
6 those three taxes, which is which. So we can get
7 you the breakdown of what that 3.1 translates to,
8 but I don't think we have that today.
9 Is that right?
10 SENATOR O'MARA: Through you,
11 Mr. President. If we could get to that, where
12 you think -- actually, where we end up in the
13 final budget bills by the time we get to debate
14 those, that would be good to have that --
15 SENATOR KRUEGER: Absolutely.
16 SENATOR O'MARA: -- type of overall
17 impact --
18 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yup.
19 SENATOR O'MARA: -- to that.
20 Now, another -- through you,
21 Mr. President, if the Senator will yield.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
23 sponsor continue to yield?
24 SENATOR KRUEGER: I'm sorry, I'm
25 getting an answer to the previous question as we
1266
1 speak, so ...
2 The corporations tax would draw in
3 1.5 billion. It's 250 million on the
4 unincorporated tax change. And -- those are the
5 two, two answers to the question.
6 SENATOR O'MARA: Well, there's a
7 third one I'm about to get to.
8 SENATOR KRUEGER: Okay, fine.
9 SENATOR O'MARA: So through you,
10 Mr. President. And I'm not sure if that's the
11 one you're thinking about or not.
12 SENATOR KRUEGER: Okay.
13 SENATOR O'MARA: But there is a --
14 through you, Mr. President, if the Senator will
15 yield.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Does the
17 sponsor continue to yield?
18 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes, I will.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
20 sponsor yields.
21 SENATOR O'MARA: There's another
22 tax increase in here on the transaction of the
23 commodity of gold bullion in this state, which
24 New York State has a large storage of the gold in
25 this country but certainly not all of it. And
1267
1 gold is transportable. You're authorizing the
2 implementation of a sales tax on that commodity.
3 I don't believe there's any sales
4 taxes on the sales of any other commodities. How
5 much is that sales tax supposed to increase on
6 the trading of gold in New York State?
7 SENATOR KRUEGER: I believe I
8 remember the number is 600 million on -- oh,
9 you've changed, hello. Sorry, I didn't notice I
10 lost -- I traded staff.
11 So it's 600 million from the state
12 tax that we would then collect. And I believe --
13 because we also allow the city to do this,
14 because I think I'm still answering the city
15 question, I believe it allows the city to also
16 apply the same sales tax, which I think is
17 $300 million for them.
18 And yes, people are describing gold
19 bars as a commodity. But it's also metal. So if
20 I go out and buy gold jewelry -- and I love gold
21 jewelry, to be honest, I buy gold jewelry -- I
22 pay sales tax on it. And if I buy a gold bar, I
23 don't pay that tax.
24 And so it's just a perfect example,
25 for me, of our decisions to prioritize some
1268
1 people having to pay taxes and some people not
2 having to pay taxes. Because I remember when I
3 came to Albany 25 years ago, I think the gold
4 tax -- the lack of gold tax was costing the state
5 about a hundred million dollars in tax. And now
6 we're up to 800 million.
7 And the problem, again, who's buying
8 gold bars? Anyone here? Just curious. Anybody
9 have gold bars? The New Jersey senator did --
10 SENATOR O'MARA: You can buy a
11 small fortune in them in your jewelry.
12 SENATOR KRUEGER: No, I pay the tax
13 when I buy my jewelry. Unless I'm buying a gold
14 bar to melt it down to make my own jewelry.
15 Which, trust me, I'm not.
16 So I don't even understand why we
17 don't understand this kind of tax expenditure for
18 certain companies and for certain individuals is
19 justified because the rest of us are paying taxes
20 even on the same product.
21 And you know what? Gold bullion
22 companies, they don't actually create jobs. I
23 think there are three companies. And somebody's
24 pushing the gold bullion in and out of the bottom
25 floor of several banks on Wall Street. But
1269
1 pretty much those are the only jobs.
2 So it's not like even if they leave
3 and go to a state that won't tax them, that we
4 lose jobs. So please don't misunderstand.
5 New Yorkers who want to buy gold
6 bullion are still going to buy gold bullion,
7 don't kid yourself. But the companies say
8 they'll leave, and I'm like, Okay, we'll have
9 some less crowded space in the basements of a few
10 banks on Wall Street. And we really won't lose
11 jobs. And we'll actually get more tax revenue
12 that is needed for everybody who's probably not
13 buying gold bullion anyway.
14 SENATOR O'MARA: Through you,
15 Mr. President, if the Senator would continue to
16 yield.
17 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes, absolutely.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
19 sponsor continue to yield?
20 The sponsor yields.
21 SENATOR O'MARA: I'm really amazed
22 at your lack of concern of jobs leaving this
23 state, whether it's in the gold bullion, whether
24 it's financial services jobs.
25 My priority in the state, that
1270
1 people live in New York and people have jobs to
2 work at in New York. Not that we just collect
3 tax revenues from out-of-state businesses doing
4 business in New York State. We want to provide
5 jobs for New Yorkers.
6 And on the gold sales, that's not
7 the typical transaction where somebody goes in
8 and buys a gold bar to take home and put on my
9 mantel to show that I'm rich or whatever. It's
10 not that kind of a retail transaction.
11 They're generally, on paper, trades
12 of the commodity very similar to stock
13 transactions.
14 So it's just -- it's going to drive
15 this business out. It's a -- really a minor
16 factor in the whole thing here, but it's just one
17 more example of the lack of concern with business
18 leaving this state and taking those jobs with
19 them.
20 Moving on, Senator, if you'll
21 continue to yield -- Mr. President.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
23 sponsor --
24 SENATOR KRUEGER: I do.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
1271
1 sponsor continues to yield.
2 SENATOR O'MARA: In addition to the
3 increase in taxes that we're allowing to New York
4 City, we have a significant amount of direct aid
5 that you referenced a bit earlier in the AIM
6 discussion that you mentioned.
7 The Governor, in her budget, had
8 proposed I believe a $1.5 billion assistance to
9 New York City for the situation, the financial
10 situation that they're in now. And in addition
11 to that, now, this one-house budget, by my read,
12 the Senate Majority is adding another
13 $693 million for temporary assistance to the
14 city, both through TANF and for adult shelters,
15 on top of that 1.5 billion.
16 For the additional adult shelters
17 and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to
18 New York City, how much is this one-house budget
19 increasing that for other areas of the state?
20 SENATOR KRUEGER: Okay. So the
21 adult shelter money is 500 million. And the
22 Temporary Assistance to Needy Families,
23 193 million. And then there's also 263 million
24 for certain foster-care costs.
25 Several of these were cut from the
1272
1 City of New York during the Cuomo administration,
2 and so we see this as a replacement for money
3 that was taken and never should have been taken.
4 I don't know that this was cut from
5 other localities. So this was not money taken
6 away from other municipalities, it was just a --
7 oddly, a Democratic governor and a Democratic
8 mayor not liking each other, and the Democratic
9 governor deciding that he was going to punish a
10 Democratic mayor in the biggest city in the state
11 by cutting funds that he could get away with
12 cutting.
13 SENATOR O'MARA: Through you,
14 Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to
15 yield.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
17 sponsor yield?
18 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
20 sponsor yields.
21 SENATOR O'MARA: So relative to
22 this additional 2.5 billion -- roughly now, I
23 guess, with the other stuff that you added in
24 there -- going to New York City from our revenues
25 in the state, my understanding is that the
1273
1 Governor, when she put forth the 1.5 billion for
2 New York City for temporary assistance, that she
3 offered up a hundred million dollars in temporary
4 assistance for the rest of the state.
5 Have you increased that other
6 assistance in addition to the $100 million that
7 the Governor put in?
8 SENATOR KRUEGER: My one demand was
9 that they number the pages this year for me.
10 It's helpful.
11 SENATOR O'MARA: It's helpful.
12 SENATOR KRUEGER: It is helpful.
13 Through you, Mr. President. My
14 colleague is correct about what the Governor did.
15 And actually, happily, as I review ours, we also
16 increased financial assistance to Rochester and
17 Yonkers by 40 million each, Syracuse by
18 30 million, and Albany by 15 million, all above
19 and beyond what the Governor proposed.
20 SENATOR O'MARA: Well, thank you,
21 Senator. I've been informed that I'm out of town
22 {sic}, but I'm just going to wrap up here -- of
23 time. Did I say out of town?
24 (Laughter.)
25 SENATOR O'MARA: Yes. Maybe both.
1274
1 But thank you for your answers. And
2 this one-house bill is fantasy, but it's a very
3 scary and concerning fantasy for the future of
4 the State of New York.
5 I'm glad there's been some
6 recognition finally from the Senator on the other
7 side of the aisle that, yes, these increases may
8 very well cause companies to move out of the
9 state and take the jobs with them. That is a
10 huge concern to us.
11 The massive increases in aid to
12 New York City, in addition to them -- allowing
13 them to increase their taxes that they're going
14 to raise, is just patently unfair to the rest of
15 the state. Well, maybe a couple of the upstate
16 Thruway cities are getting a little more money in
17 the end, but the rest of the state is not. And
18 they have needs just as well.
19 You're worried about the mayor
20 threatening a 10 percent property tax increase to
21 New York City, and I certainly don't want to see
22 that. But I have municipalities in my district
23 that are facing those same types of increases in
24 property taxes to New Yorkers in my district and
25 across the rest of the state. And they're not
1275
1 getting equal treatment.
2 And my constituents and constituents
3 everywhere in New York State are struggling under
4 the unaffordability of living in this state.
5 This budget that the Governor has proposed, and
6 is then exacerbated by this one-house proposal,
7 just makes New York State all that much more
8 expensive and less affordable for New Yorkers to
9 live.
10 We need businesses here to provide
11 jobs for people that live here, because we're
12 sick and tired of people leaving this state to
13 find the opportunity elsewhere because we've
14 taxed and spent our way into an unaffordability
15 crisis in this state.
16 Thank you, Mr. President.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
18 you, Senator O'Mara.
19 Senator Gallivan, why do you rise?
20 SENATOR GALLIVAN: I would like to
21 ask a few questions, Mr. President, on the
22 Medicaid area of the budget.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
24 you, Senator Gallivan.
25 SENATOR GALLIVAN: And I also must
1276
1 say that I'm very interested to hear of
2 Senator Krueger's hopes and dreams to have
3 adopted a budget by April 1st. I share that.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
5 Senator Rivera will be --
6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Will
7 Senator Rivera yield for a few questions?
8 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
9 Rivera, do you yield?
10 SENATOR RIVERA: Yes,
11 Mr. President.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
13 sponsor yields.
14 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So when we look
15 at Medicaid spending, we spend an awful lot.
16 It's the biggest area of the budget. For fiscal
17 year '27, spending is projected to be over --
18 approximately $120 billion. The state share has
19 tripled in the last 15 years. It's increased
20 nearly 60 percent in the last five years. And
21 this Senate one-house proposed budget increases
22 the state share by 11.4 percent year over year.
23 So the Senate one-house proposal
24 increases Medicaid spending. It eliminates the
25 Medicaid cap and removes several Executive
1277
1 deficit reduction measures. My question is, how
2 can you reconcile this approach with
3 affordability and fiscal sustainability?
4 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
5 Mr. President. First of all, I would remind us
6 that what -- when we're talking about Medicaid,
7 we're talking about a program that is a
8 safety net for so many working-class and poor
9 New Yorkers all across the state. And when we're
10 talking about affordability, the cost of
11 healthcare is one of the main drivers of
12 unaffordability for basically -- it's something
13 that could be said certainly for the entire
14 country, and certainly for the State of New York.
15 But furthermore, Mr. President, I'd
16 like to remind us that the federal government is
17 taking some immensely negative actions against
18 the State of New York that seem punitive in my
19 view, Mr. President, that ultimately impact
20 programs like this.
21 This is not something that is just
22 given away to just anybody. We're talking about,
23 Mr. President, folks who need medical coverage.
24 And so yes, indeed -- through you,
25 Mr. President -- there are increases that we are
1278
1 proposing in this one-house budget. But let us
2 not forget that regardless of what we are
3 proposing as far as an increase, in no way does
4 it make up for the immense impacts that will be
5 felt by the federal government's actions against
6 the most vulnerable in our state. And certainly
7 that includes those folks who are Medicaid
8 recipients.
9 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Would the
10 Senator continue to yield?
11 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
12 sponsor continue to yield?
13 SENATOR RIVERA: I will.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
15 sponsor yields.
16 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So the Executive
17 proposal increased year-over-year state spending
18 approximately 10 percent. And when she did this,
19 she also alluded to the federal government and
20 indicated that she backfilled the federal
21 government cuts.
22 The Senate one-house, however, not
23 only -- not only continues what the -- includes
24 what the Governor had put in, it includes an
25 additional $630 million in spending in Medicaid.
1279
1 Where's the $630 million going?
2 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
3 Mr. President. If the -- if he could repeat the
4 last part of your question. Where is it going
5 to, or where is it coming from?
6 SENATOR GALLIVAN: No. The
7 Executive Budget -- according to the Executive
8 when she presented it -- backfilled what she says
9 were the federal cuts. The Senate one-house
10 includes an additional $630 million.
11 The question is, where is that
12 additional 630 million being spent?
13 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
14 Mr. President. The biggest chunk of that would
15 be for financially distressed hospitals. Which I
16 will remind you, Mr. President, is not just
17 something that impacts safety net institutions in
18 the cities or in urban spaces, but certainly in
19 urban districts and suburban districts, in rural
20 districts all across our state. There are many
21 safety-net institutions that are not just for
22 this year but over many years of disinvestment,
23 falling on hard times.
24 And so the extra money that we're
25 proposing in this particular budget, number one,
1280
1 is certainly -- in this the biggest chunk is for
2 distressed hospitals. But again, I'll remind
3 everyone that we are not making -- we're making a
4 dent, certainly. But the amount that -- the way
5 that I put it is the cuts that we already
6 suffered, Mr. President, from the federal
7 government are like a bat to the side of the
8 head. But come January next year, there comes
9 the ax for the other side of the head.
10 And so we're trying to do our best
11 with the resources that we have to -- you say --
12 my colleague says backfill; I say try to avert
13 the worst outcomes for the most vulnerable around
14 the state.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Through you,
16 Mr. President, would the Senator continue to
17 yield?
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Does the
19 sponsor yield?
20 SENATOR RIVERA: I do.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
22 sponsor yields.
23 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Does the Senate
24 one-house include any of its own cost-saving
25 measures? In the area of Medicaid, of course.
1281
1 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
2 Mr. President -- (glass falling). Goddamn, I
3 keep doing that to the damn bottle. Let me just
4 put it over here. There.
5 Through you, Mr. President. There
6 is language in the bill that refers generally to
7 working alongside with our Assembly colleagues as
8 well as the Executive on finding efficiencies.
9 There's no specific outlined savings proposal
10 per se.
11 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Through you,
12 Mr. President, would the Senator continue to
13 yield?
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
15 sponsor yield?
16 SENATOR RIVERA: Without flipping
17 the bottle over, yes, I will, Mr. President.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
19 sponsor yields. Quietly.
20 SENATOR GALLIVAN: We've seen
21 recently a number of investigations and audits
22 that have identified, you know, significant
23 amounts of fraud and improper payments across our
24 system, the Medicaid system. Among them,
25 $2.6 billion in Medicaid payments potentially
1282
1 made to individuals who do not live in New York
2 State; 196 million in improper payments under the
3 non-emergency medical transportation program;
4 $68 million involving daycare operators in
5 Brooklyn; 3.5 million, fraudulent claims in
6 Orange County, among others.
7 Does the Senate one-house budget do
8 anything -- given this documented fraud and
9 improper payments, does it do anything to
10 specifically focus on strengthening program
11 integrity and fraud prevention?
12 (Pause.)
13 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
14 Mr. President. There are a few ways in which the
15 State of New York can and indeed does find people
16 who are abusing the system, both the Office of
17 Medicaid Inspector General, OMIG, as well as a
18 part of the Attorney General's office that
19 investigates these types of crimes.
20 And I'll remind my colleague that it
21 is precisely the fact that we have investigated
22 and found people who are abusing the system, that
23 any of the things that he is referring to have
24 been found.
25 So certainly none of us on this side
1283
1 of the aisle will ever defend those folks who are
2 abusing the system, particularly one that, as I
3 said before, not only serves the most vulnerable
4 but also is on the brink of collapse because of
5 the federal attacks to it.
6 So I am all for identifying folks
7 who are being fraudulent, who are abusing the
8 system, and certainly would, as they say, want
9 the book thrown at them.
10 And we have entities in the State of
11 New York that do that sort of work. I thank them
12 for it. And we certainly would do whatever we
13 can to augment their ability to continue to do
14 that.
15 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Through you,
16 Mr. President, would the Senator continue to
17 yield?
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Does the
19 sponsor yield?
20 SENATOR RIVERA: I will.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
22 sponsor yields.
23 SENATOR GALLIVAN: So the Senator
24 referred to these people being caught. It's good
25 that they're caught through existing measures.
1284
1 But my question has to do with are -- does the
2 Senate one-house provide for any additional fraud
3 prevention measures in it?
4 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
5 Mr. President. The budget itself doesn't have
6 anything specific related to this.
7 But I certainly believe that if
8 there are entities, either at the state level or
9 at the federal level, that are looking to
10 identify illegal and inappropriate actions, and
11 they're asking for information to be able to
12 determine that, that we should provide it to
13 them.
14 SENATOR GALLIVAN: Thank you,
15 Senator Rivera. Thank you, Mr. President.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
17 you, Senator Gallivan.
18 Senator Helming, why do you rise?
19 SENATOR HELMING: Thank you,
20 Mr. President. If the sponsor would yield to a
21 few questions regarding auto insurance.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
23 Senator Bailey will be responding.
24 Senator Bailey, do you yield?
25 SENATOR BAILEY: Delightfully so.
1285
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
2 Bailey yields.
3 SENATOR HELMING: Thank you.
4 Through you, Mr. President, if Senator Bailey
5 will yield to a question regarding Part F.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: He
7 yields.
8 SENATOR BAILEY: Certainly,
9 Senator Helming.
10 SENATOR HELMING: Senator Bailey,
11 in the Executive proposal was -- the executive
12 proposal included reforming the definition of
13 "criminal fraudulent act" and increasing
14 penalties for crimes involving insurance fraud.
15 Does the Senate one-house support
16 those initiatives?
17 SENATOR BAILEY: Through you,
18 Mr. President. The Senate Majority was very
19 clear in our resolution language that we support
20 making sure that we have a more affordable
21 New York, and by all measures in the Governor's
22 budget that we applaud the Governor for taking
23 the steps that she had. But we have --
24 reasonable minds can differ, and we differ in the
25 way that the language was. The Senate Majority
1286
1 certainly looks forward to resolving this at the
2 end of this budget process and making sure that
3 concepts that have been placed in the original
4 Executive Budget, that they are resolved in favor
5 of all New Yorkers.
6 SENATOR HELMING: Through you,
7 Mr. President, if the sponsor will continue to
8 yield.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
10 sponsor yield?
11 SENATOR BAILEY: Yes, I do.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
13 sponsor yields.
14 SENATOR HELMING: Senator Bailey,
15 what alternatives have you proposed to address
16 auto insurance fraud and to hold bad actors
17 accountable in this one-house budget?
18 SENATOR BAILEY: Through you,
19 Mr. President. Once again, that the conversation
20 is something that this Majority has been very
21 clear about. We've been contemplative through
22 roundtables, through hearings, through
23 discussions with individual stakeholders, with
24 group stakeholders, associations, trade groups.
25 Anybody that is willing to listen, we've had the
1287
1 conversation.
2 In the language that was presented
3 by the Executive, well-intended language, the
4 Senate Majority, again in our resolution
5 language, has clearly indicated that we look
6 forward to having an ongoing conversation about
7 resolving the issues that you, Senator Helming,
8 have mentioned, and many of our colleagues have
9 mentioned, because they come to us from our
10 constituents.
11 Our constituents, our family group
12 chats -- all of our conversations are related to
13 the high cost of insurance and affordability and
14 fraud. And our resolution language was
15 crystal-clear that we intend to engage in ongoing
16 and further discussion related to that.
17 SENATOR HELMING: Through you,
18 Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to
19 yield.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
21 sponsor yield?
22 SENATOR BAILEY: I do.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
24 sponsor yields.
25 SENATOR HELMING: Senator, in
1288
1 Part F or Part G can you point to the language
2 that says that the Senate Majority intends to
3 address this?
4 SENATOR BAILEY: Through you,
5 Mr. President. The Senate's resolution
6 language -- that was not necessarily in that
7 part -- was very clear. And out of respect for
8 the two-hour debate limit, I'm not going to
9 repeat everything that I said.
10 But we are laser-focused -- I'll use
11 another phrase -- to making sure that
12 affordability is something that we conquer in
13 this budget. But I think it was -- our
14 resolution language was very clear.
15 SENATOR HELMING: Through you,
16 Mr. President, if the Senator will continue to
17 yield.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
19 sponsor yield?
20 SENATOR BAILEY: I do.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
22 sponsor yields.
23 SENATOR HELMING: Senator Bailey,
24 why did the Majority reject the Executive
25 proposal reconfiguring the New York Motor Vehicle
1289
1 Theft and Insurance Fraud Prevention Board?
2 SENATOR BAILEY: Through you,
3 Mr. President. For the same reasons in the prior
4 iteration of the questions. When you have
5 something that is as complicated and as complex
6 as the issue of affordability as it relates to
7 auto insurance, pointing out one particular thing
8 or pulling one string simply does that.
9 This does not do that. There is no
10 magic bullet to affordability. There is no one
11 concept or one theory or one thought that will
12 lead to affordability.
13 We're excited and willing to have
14 conversations about fraud, incidents of fraud,
15 data around fraud. We do not accept fraud. We
16 do not want fraud to happen. And that is one
17 thing I can certainly state: We are anti-fraud.
18 We do not want to have anybody doing fraud in our
19 state.
20 But the manner in which we should go
21 about investigating it, looking at it, examining
22 it, is something that we should have further
23 discussion about as we conclude this year's
24 budget.
25 SENATOR HELMING: Thank you.
1290
1 Through you, Mr. President, if the sponsor will
2 continue to yield.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
4 sponsor yield?
5 SENATOR BAILEY: Certainly.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
7 sponsor yields.
8 SENATOR HELMING: Senator Bailey,
9 are you happy with the way that the New York
10 Motor Vehicle Theft and Insurance Fraud
11 Prevention Board is operating currently?
12 SENATOR BAILEY: Mr. President,
13 "happy" is a relative term. "Happyish" is what
14 Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins often says when we
15 speak about these conversations.
16 In all seriousness, my personal
17 happiness is not what is of worth, is of measure
18 in this Executive Budget. What matters in this
19 Executive Budget is figuring out how can we deal
20 with affordability.
21 And should we figure out a better
22 way to deal with fraud and deal with crime as
23 related to auto insurance? I'm certainly happy
24 to have that conversation. Again, it is an
25 ongoing conversation. And respectfully, my
1291
1 personal happiness has nothing to do with the
2 manner in which we mete out solutions and
3 measures in this Executive Budget.
4 SENATOR HELMING: Through you,
5 Mr. President, quickly on the bill.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
7 Helming on the bill.
8 SENATOR HELMING: So maybe "happy"
9 wasn't the right term.
10 However, all you have to do is look
11 at the New York State Comptroller audit of that
12 board, the prevention board. They looked at a
13 four-year period and saw that the board is
14 basically dysfunctional. They don't have a
15 quorum present, they can't take action.
16 The money that our ratepayers are
17 putting into the fund to help control, deter,
18 reduce fraud and reduce insurance rates, a large
19 portion of that every single year gets swept from
20 the Fraud Prevention Fund and goes into the
21 general budget. So I think it's something that
22 definitely needs to be addressed.
23 But through you, Mr. President, if
24 the sponsor will continue to yield.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
1292
1 sponsor yield?
2 SENATOR BAILEY: Certainly.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
4 sponsor yields.
5 SENATOR HELMING: Senator Bailey,
6 in Part FF it appears that the Senate
7 intentionally omits the Executive proposal to
8 extend the time frame insurers have to report
9 suspected fraud from 30 days to 60 days.
10 Why wouldn't the Majority want to
11 make sure that any suspected fraud -- that
12 there's time to investigate it and to resolve?
13 SENATOR BAILEY: Through you,
14 Mr. President. For the same reasons I've
15 articulated before. It -- on paper, it may seem
16 reasonable to you -- and I don't even know what
17 the -- what your position is, or your
18 conference's position is. But let's say that for
19 a second you did accept the Governor's language.
20 What is responsible legislating,
21 what responsible legislators do is we take
22 language, we review them and we have
23 conversations. This is not to say that you're
24 not a responsible legislator, Senator Helming. I
25 certainly know that you are. And we've had
1293
1 responsible conversations.
2 But it is up to us to be responsible
3 and thoughtful and diligent. And when we see a
4 well-intended, well-thought-out, reasonable
5 argument, it's our job to continue the
6 conversation about how exactly the end result
7 comes.
8 SENATOR HELMING: Through you,
9 Mr. President, on the resolution.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
11 Helming on the resolution.
12 SENATOR HELMING: So I just want to
13 point out that I appreciate Senator Bailey saying
14 that the Majority is going to work on the issue
15 of reducing, preventing insurance fraud so that
16 we can reduce rates to taxpayers -- or to
17 ratepayers.
18 But I'd like to point out that the
19 language that the Majority has included in the
20 budget proposal is extremely weak. It doesn't
21 make a firm commitment. It basically says "hopes
22 to continue working on this issue with its
23 partners in the Executive and Assembly."
24 And that's on everything. That's to
25 hold bad actors accountable, to reduce fraud.
1294
1 But I'd like to go on the record.
2 As the ranking member of the Senate Insurance
3 Committee, I'm deeply concerned. The Senate
4 one-house budget proposal intentionally omits
5 every single -- just about every single proposal
6 that would help reduce auto insurance fraud.
7 This is a real missed opportunity to
8 deliver reform and savings for New York drivers.
9 We talk about affordability all the time. This
10 was an opportunity to take proactive measures to
11 actually put savings back in people's pockets.
12 Motor vehicle fraud and staged accident schemes
13 are not victimless crimes. Every fraudulent
14 claim drives up premiums and forces honest
15 New Yorkers to pay the price.
16 Staged crashes alone add about $300
17 a year to individuals' car insurance costs. In
18 2023 our state ranked second in the nation for
19 staged auto crashes, with more than 38,000
20 suspected fraud cases being reported to the
21 New York State Department of Financial Services.
22 As a result of all of this, New York
23 drivers pay some of the highest auto insurance
24 premiums in the country. I did some research and
25 found that for many New Yorkers, auto insurance
1295
1 now costs more than $4,000 a year. And for
2 people who live in the New York City area, it is
3 much, much higher than that.
4 I heard a comment earlier that when
5 companies raise their prices, the costs don't
6 come down. Well, guess what? It's different
7 with the auto insurance industry. And we have
8 opportunities to bring those costs down.
9 During the budget hearings, the
10 Department of Financial Services confirmed that
11 enacting reforms will significantly reduce auto
12 insurance premiums. In total, the reforms that
13 were omitted from this budget proposal by the
14 Majority were projected to reduce rates by about
15 12 percent. That's real savings that families,
16 seniors, businesses, the municipalities we heard
17 that we should be watching over, the school
18 districts -- those are real savings that we're
19 walking away from.
20 The Senate Majority rejected every
21 proposal to reduce auto insurance fraud and lower
22 premiums. In place of real reforms, they offered
23 only their hope to continue working on the issue.
24 You know what? Hope doesn't pay
25 anyone's bills. We need action to reduce
1296
1 insurance costs.
2 And for these reasons and so many
3 more, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the
4 aisle to help make our state more affordable and
5 reject this budget resolution before us.
6 Thank you, Mr. President.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
8 you, Senator Helming.
9 Senator Mattera, why do you rise?
10 SENATOR MATTERA: Thank you,
11 Mr. President. Would the -- this is on energy.
12 Would the sponsor please yield for a couple of
13 questions?
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
15 Senator Parker will be answering those questions.
16 Senator Parker, do you yield?
17 SENATOR PARKER: Yes,
18 Mr. President.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: He
20 yields.
21 SENATOR MATTERA: How are you,
22 Senator Parker?
23 A quick question. You know, why is
24 there nothing in the one-house that reflects the
25 Governor's stated desire to roll back the
1297
1 elements of the CLCPA? And this is like one of
2 the most important subjects to all New Yorkers
3 right now, what is happening with the utility
4 bills.
5 So why isn't there anything put in
6 this one-house?
7 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
8 Mr. President. Actually, I think there's a lot
9 in the one-house as it relates to the CLCPA. I
10 think we have stated opposition very clearly in
11 this one-house that we support the goals of the
12 CLCPA. We're talking about a law that was
13 created in 2019 that we're in the process of
14 implementing. And I think that we are going
15 forward with a number of proposals that we think
16 advance the goals of the CLCPA.
17 SENATOR MATTERA: Through you,
18 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
19 yield, please?
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Does the
21 sponsor yield?
22 SENATOR PARKER: Yes,
23 Mr. President.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
25 sponsor yields.
1298
1 SENATOR MATTERA: Senator, with
2 over 1.3 million New York residents behind on
3 their utility bills, in light of the recent and
4 troubling NYSERDA memo outlining moving forward
5 with the CLCPA will have a very real financial
6 impact on all New Yorkers, this is a time to see
7 change. And we see nothing has really happened
8 with real impact on the real, illogical mandates
9 of the CLCPA, nothing to protect our residents
10 from the all-electric mandates, nothing
11 that increases -- it increases all utility bills.
12 This is in the face of NYSERDA's
13 memo. We know there was a memo that was out,
14 that this chamber said that that memo was false.
15 But we know that it was totally true.
16 Obviously with gas prices going up,
17 spiking, households throughout the state will pay
18 thousands more and businesses' cost is totally
19 increasing.
20 Again, what are we doing to help
21 these 1.3 million residents that are behind on
22 their utility bills?
23 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
24 Mr. President. The reality is right now we have
25 a global increase in the prices of energy, right,
1299
1 because of a Republican war that was unsanctioned
2 by Congress, and it has literally raised the
3 prices of oil, gas and natural gas not just in
4 the State of New York, but throughout our
5 country.
6 Over the last week we've seen gas
7 rise over 50 cents per gallon -- in the last
8 week -- because of that war.
9 And when we look at what raises
10 prices of things like heating in our state, what
11 NYSERDA will tell you, what the PSC will tell
12 you, what the ISO will tell you is that that
13 happens because of the global price of natural
14 gas, not because of sustainable energy.
15 And so in this moment, the things
16 that are actually happening globally actually
17 emphasize the perspective that the Senate
18 Democrats are coming from, which is that we need
19 more sustainable energy in our state immediately
20 in order to lower prices and to make our state
21 energy-independent.
22 SENATOR MATTERA: Through you,
23 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
24 yield, please?
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
1300
1 sponsor yield?
2 SENATOR PARKER: Yes,
3 Mr. President.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
5 sponsor yields.
6 SENATOR MATTERA: No, it's not
7 that, Senator. That's this one week right now.
8 This has been going on for -- you know, what's
9 happening right now, since the CLCPA. We could
10 talk about how the utility rates have gone up
11 over a hundred percent in all areas in New York
12 State. So stop the blame game all the time with
13 the federal government.
14 You know what? Let's talk about the
15 2 billion plus, $2.4 billion that NYSERDA, Clean
16 Energy Fund, unspent. And nearly 700 million
17 being held by utility companies waiting to be
18 transferred to the Clean Energy Fund.
19 Why is this happening? And why
20 aren't we doing anything about that? Our
21 conference is the one that brought this forward.
22 And I'm still seeing nothing happening with that
23 $2.4 billion going back to the ratepayers that
24 are having a hard enough time, like we talked
25 about -- there it is, 1.8 billion in arrears.
1301
1 But this is what we're doing, gouging, by having
2 a big fund of $2.4 billion.
3 Why isn't there anything right now
4 in this one-house?
5 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
6 Mr. President. We actually have a number of
7 measures in our one-house bill that actually
8 really address the real need of utility
9 affordability in our great state.
10 In fact, it's the Democratic
11 Conference of the State Senate that five years
12 ago came forward with the first-ever utility
13 package. And we've passed it year after year
14 after year in this very house -- with many of my
15 colleagues, Mr. President, voting against it.
16 Things that would provide deep affordability to
17 their constituents as well as mine.
18 And so you have seen not just some
19 of the things that the Governor has put forward,
20 but in our one-house we've actually expanded the
21 number of things that we believe would provide
22 more affordability around utilities, and we're
23 bringing them forward as things that we're going
24 to be negotiating in the final budget.
25 And so, you know, I think that we're
1302
1 doing all that we should be doing and frankly
2 more.
3 But let's also be clear that the
4 CLCPA and the plan hasn't even been implemented
5 yet. So you can't even talk about like any
6 raising of utility prices being because of the
7 CLCPA because we haven't implemented the vast
8 majority of the things.
9 And the big thing that we were going
10 to do, right, which was the offshore wind, once
11 again got thwarted by Trump's administration. So
12 time after time after time we see the State of
13 New York having to run to the defense of
14 New Yorkers because of a federal government that
15 continues to turn its back on us, that continues
16 to go into unsanctioned wars and create energy
17 crises globally. Right? As we look at prices
18 going up for all of our homes even as we speak.
19 And so in this moment we look at
20 this one-house bill brought by this Majority that
21 says the way forward is to do the thing that
22 we've already said we're going to do. Right?
23 Which is protect New Yorkers by providing clean,
24 sustainable energy. And it's the law already.
25 So what we're talking about doing is following
1303
1 the law.
2 I know that this is a tough time for
3 everybody. But this is New York. And when
4 things get tough, New Yorkers get going. And
5 what we're doing in this one-house is our best
6 efforts to make sure that we stay on course with
7 the Climate Leadership and Community Protection
8 Act, because that's what we believe that we must
9 do, provide leadership in our community and
10 protect our climate while simultaneously making
11 sure that we have affordability, reliability and
12 meeting the energy needs of our great state.
13 SENATOR MATTERA: Mr. President,
14 would the sponsor still continue to yield?
15 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
16 sponsor yield?
17 SENATOR PARKER: Yes,
18 Mr. President.
19 SENATOR MATTERA: You know, you
20 still didn't answer the question. You did not
21 answer the question.
22 Do you really feel -- I'm going to
23 ask you again -- the $2.4 billion that's sitting
24 with NYSERDA, should that go back to the
25 ratepayers that -- we talk about affordability?
1304
1 This chamber -- that's what this budget was
2 supposed to be about. Ask Governor Hochul about
3 affordability. This isn't affordability. I know
4 it. Our constituents are suffering. Again,
5 1.8 billion people can't even pay their bills.
6 What are we doing to give this money
7 back to the ratepayer, Senator?
8 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President,
9 through you. What we actually know about the
10 CLCPA and what we know about cap-and-invest,
11 which is also the law of the land, that still
12 needs to be implemented, is that -- two things.
13 One, high energy prices are due to
14 the global increase in gas, natural gas. Which
15 has not been helped -- in fact, exacerbated -- by
16 Trump's war.
17 The second thing, that we understand
18 that a full implementation of the CLCPA and a
19 full implementation of cap-and-invest actually
20 would lower prices for New Yorkers making
21 $200,000 or less throughout the state. They
22 would actually all benefit from it. And so what
23 we're doing is advancing that long-term goal.
24 I get it. People want gimmicks.
25 Right? And sending people a $30 check is a cute
1305
1 gimmick, but it actually doesn't create the
2 structural kind of change that we need in our
3 system. And that's what we're committed to, is
4 really addressing the issues and in a real,
5 substantial way.
6 And so we stand here today proud of
7 our one-house because we understood the amount of
8 time and effort and energy that both legislators
9 and staff have put into putting these ideas
10 together, making sure that they're
11 cost-effective, and making sure that we are
12 addressing the affordability crisis that we have
13 here in the state, especially around utilities.
14 And again, this is not something
15 that we started this year on. You can look at
16 the record. We've passed this, you know, for
17 five consecutive years and really tried to bring
18 these issues to the forefront.
19 And so in this moment what we're
20 trying to do is say use the resources that the
21 state has to advance the agenda that the law has
22 set up, both the CLCPA and cap-and-invest.
23 Because long term, our energy costs will be lower
24 and our state will have the resources that it
25 needs in order to meet the growing demand for
1306
1 electricity in the state.
2 Let me be very clear. If the CLCPA
3 was not in effect, we would still have the need
4 to produce additional generation. And how could
5 you in this moment argue that you should build
6 more natural gas plants or coal plants or oil
7 plants when the global price of natural gas and
8 oil is what has everybody's energy prices so high
9 in this moment?
10 And so really the answer is
11 sustainable energy. Right? And then I have
12 always argued for an all-of-the-above approach as
13 it relates to sustainable energy. Right? Sun
14 during the day, wind at night, battery storage,
15 hydro, co-gen, all become part of a mix that will
16 not just fuel our state but also provide the kind
17 of affordability, reliability and safety that we
18 all need and desire.
19 SENATOR MATTERA: Through you,
20 Mr. President. Does the sponsor still please
21 would yield for a couple more questions? Because
22 I would appreciate that.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
24 sponsor yield?
25 SENATOR PARKER: Yes,
1307
1 Mr. President.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
3 sponsor yields.
4 SENATOR MATTERA: And,
5 Senator Parker that was great, that was a great
6 whole story that you still didn't answer the
7 question.
8 New Yorkers want a refund. And you
9 know what? You went on with that whole story,
10 which was very, very nice about your wind and
11 solar, which I have no problem with, that all
12 wind and solar, especially solar on buildings.
13 But battery storage? Like you said,
14 you don't mind a battery storage facility on your
15 building in Brooklyn. Which we know it's nothing
16 but an experiment. We all know that.
17 So my question again to you is how
18 do you feel about -- that we suspended, the
19 Governor suspended the All-Electric Buildings Act
20 in New York State? It should have happened in
21 New York City, by the way, but in New York State,
22 because we all know that in other words we can't
23 survive -- 75 percent of New Yorkers want natural
24 gas and need natural gas. Because guess what, we
25 all know why our utility bills are going up.
1308
1 But please answer that question for
2 me about the suspension of the All-Electric.
3 SENATOR PARKER: I am -- I continue
4 to be entertained in this chamber by people just
5 creating numbers and saying what New Yorkers
6 want.
7 We all represent New Yorkers. And I
8 don't have a bunch of people beating down my door
9 in my district talking about "We want natural
10 gas." That's just literally not a thing. Right?
11 Look, people want energy and they
12 want reliable energy, they want affordable
13 energy. They are asking for us to meet their
14 needs, which is what we have done in this
15 chamber. At least under our leadership.
16 And so I'm hearing two separate
17 questions, the first of which is about monies
18 being held or held by the utility possibly going
19 to NYSERDA and what we should do with that.
20 If you read our -- Mr. President,
21 any close examination of our one-house proposal
22 tells you that our parts that address the -- you
23 know, what utilities should be doing through the
24 PSC, is that we should be examining these rate
25 cases, really just having a real good look and
1309
1 not just giving rate cases a go just because
2 they're brought forward.
3 And in the case in which we find
4 that the rate cases don't have merit and a refund
5 is in order, we actually are suggesting in our
6 one-house that those refunds happen.
7 The second question seemed to be
8 about, you know, other -- other things about, you
9 know, energy. Let's be clear about this. We've
10 been using sustainable energy in this state for a
11 hundred years. Right? And frankly the base of
12 our sustainable energy program is actually hydro.
13 We have some of the best hydroelectric facilities
14 in the entire world, starting with Niagara Falls.
15 Right?
16 And so this is not like some new
17 untested thing or, you know, as my colleague
18 indicates, some kind of experiment. This is
19 science. We actually -- this is -- this is a
20 known thing. This is known, as they say. Right?
21 And as we like to say in Brooklyn, what is
22 understood need not be explained. Right? We
23 have been doing sustainable energy globally for
24 decades. And, like I said, you know, over a
25 hundred years just here in this country.
1310
1 And so in this moment we continue to
2 be committed to the CLCPA and the goals of the
3 CLCPA. We believe that what we should be doing
4 with the Governor is working with her to look at
5 the other options that are available.
6 We have not addressed the issues
7 around demand response, which is over 10 percent.
8 There's lots of resources for us to do
9 weatherization and, you know, remodeling of
10 buildings in order to save energy.
11 We understand in our Green Collar
12 Jobs Act that we have not just -- you know, not
13 just that I wrote 10 years ago that we have
14 reupped for a number of years. It lowers
15 people's energy prices. Right? It, you know,
16 reduces our footprint and also creates full-time
17 jobs at a living wage with benefits.
18 And so the work that we have done
19 around sustainable energy and the work that
20 should be done with the full implementation of
21 the CLCPA and cap-and-invest are going to be
22 really, really important not just for the future
23 of the state from an energy perspective, but also
24 for creating affordability, not just with
25 utilities but in the lifestyles of New Yorkers
1311
1 across our state.
2 SENATOR MATTERA: On the bill.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
4 Mattera on the bill.
5 SENATOR MATTERA: Thank you,
6 Mr. President.
7 You know, this budget is supposed to
8 be about affordability. You know what? This
9 budget is just out of control. Sixteen billion
10 dollars more than last year, and to do nothing to
11 help our residents in New York State.
12 Energy is one of the most important
13 things, topics today, about people's utility
14 bills. They can't afford them. And they look at
15 their bills every day and say, What am I supposed
16 to do? There's a reason why we have 2.5 million
17 people residents of this great state, that exited
18 to go to Tennessee, North Carolina, South
19 Carolina, Florida, Texas, even South Dakota,
20 because of what's happening here. Gouging all
21 New Yorkers in their pockets and their
22 pocketbooks.
23 This chamber is doing this. I'm a
24 very conservative person my whole life. With
25 Plumbers Local 200, with our pensions, making
1312
1 sure to make sure that people can survive. And
2 you know what they're doing? Our workers are
3 leaving. Our pension people are leaving. They
4 can't afford to live here with that pension,
5 especially with what's going on here.
6 Imagine that, a $270 billion budget,
7 more than Florida, Texas, South Dakota and
8 North Dakota combined. You can talk about our
9 energy needs all day long. Our NESE pipeline is
10 finally coming in because it's a necessity.
11 We had a meeting, we had a meeting
12 before session started making sure that that NESE
13 pipeline, we proved that we need to make sure
14 that NESE pipeline is here for the future of our
15 natural gas so we can survive here with our
16 energy needs.
17 To go sit there and say all
18 electric -- it doesn't work. We put the cart
19 before the horse. We need to make sure that we
20 invest in our infrastructure first, then
21 transition into. No. It's always the cart
22 before the horse with New York State.
23 But there's the Governor again,
24 there she is, she sits there and she says:
25 Affordability. Last year it was about discovery,
1313
1 and that didn't happen. I think we're going to
2 have a late budget, everybody, because of this
3 situation. And I hope so. In other words, that
4 we repeal the CLCPA, we repeal cap-and-invest.
5 And you know what? And start over. Start over.
6 New drawing board.
7 That's how it's important,
8 especially for our energy needs for our future,
9 for our ratepayers. They care about certain --
10 they want their own fuel choice. They want their
11 energy choice. And you know what, Mr. President?
12 I will be voting a big no on this, first of all,
13 because it helps no New Yorker in their pockets.
14 And that's what New Yorkers care about.
15 Thank you.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
17 you, Senator Mattera.
18 Senator Walczyk, why do you rise?
19 SENATOR WALCZYK: Mr. President,
20 I'd like to go briefly on the resolution and then
21 ask some questions on energy.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
23 you. Senator Walczyk on the resolution.
24 SENATOR WALCZYK: Mr. President, in
25 Part RR of this budget resolution, the Senate
1314
1 Majority is using the Clean Energy Fund, which is
2 paid for by the ratepayers, to pay for $2,000
3 rebates on used Teslas. In Part SS, the Senate
4 Majority is using that same fund, asking people
5 to pay for -- who pay an electric and gas bill to
6 pay for an $1100 rebate for electric scooters and
7 bikes. In Part GGG, the Senate Majority is
8 asking ratepayers to give out $2,000 rebates for
9 heat pumps through NYSERDA, paid for once again
10 by ratepayers. In Part III, you're asking
11 ratepayers to spend $3 billion more on NY-SUN to
12 build a capacity of 20 gigawatts of solar by
13 2035.
14 New Yorkers cannot afford their
15 energy bills now.
16 And with that, Mr. President, I
17 would ask someone on Energy to yield for a couple
18 of questions.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
20 Parker, do you yield?
21 SENATOR PARKER: I will, thank you.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
23 Parker yields.
24 SENATOR WALCZYK: Thank you.
25 Through you, Madam -- through you, Mr. President,
1315
1 does this resolution use $2 billion in unspent
2 Clean Energy Fund and send them back to the
3 ratepayers, as has been proposed by an esteemed
4 member of our body?
5 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President, not
6 exactly.
7 There are -- as I indicated in my
8 answer to Senator Mattera, there are instances in
9 which we are directing the PSC in their
10 examination of utilities and their rate cases,
11 when they find places where it's appropriate to
12 send back rebates -- I'm sorry, refunds, they are
13 sending refunds in. No, no, sorry, they're
14 directed to send refunds.
15 SENATOR WALCZYK: Mr. President,
16 would the sponsor yield?
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will you
18 yield?
19 SENATOR PARKER: I do.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
21 sponsor yields.
22 SENATOR WALCZYK: Through you,
23 Mr. President. Does your budget proposal here
24 have a one-year tax and surcharge holiday, as has
25 been proposed by a colleague here?
1316
1 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
2 Mr. President, we do not.
3 SENATOR WALCZYK: Through you,
4 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
5 yield?
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
7 sponsor yield? Does the sponsor yield?
8 SENATOR PARKER: Yes. I'm sorry,
9 yes.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
11 Parker yields.
12 SENATOR WALCZYK: Does this
13 one-house budget resolution repeal the systems
14 benefit charge, as I've proposed?
15 SENATOR PARKER: No, it does not,
16 Mr. President.
17 SENATOR WALCZYK: And through you,
18 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
19 yield?
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
21 sponsor yield?
22 SENATOR PARKER: Yes.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
24 sponsor yields.
25 SENATOR WALCZYK: Does this budget
1317
1 resolution repeal any piece of the CLCPA?
2 SENATOR PARKER: No, Mr. President,
3 we proudly stand by the CLCPA, which we helped
4 negotiate, and understand it as the most
5 ambitious climate change law in the entire
6 country, one that should be not just a model for
7 the United States but hopefully will create the
8 dynamic in which we need to do a multinational
9 understanding to save our planet and to lower our
10 greenhouse emissions globally.
11 SENATOR WALCZYK: Through you,
12 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
13 yield?
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Does the
15 sponsor yield?
16 SENATOR PARKER: Yes.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
18 sponsor yields.
19 SENATOR WALCZYK: New Yorkers have
20 been screaming about energy prices for the better
21 part of a year, and especially over the last few
22 months. How much of a reduction, if your budget
23 resolution became law, became the budget in
24 New York State, how much of a reduction in
25 utility costs could they anticipate?
1318
1 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President,
2 through you. We don't have an exact answer to
3 that because we're still trying to figure out how
4 much money the utilities are overcharging our
5 constituents, both yours and mine.
6 And so what we are suggesting in our
7 one-house is to have some real answers around
8 those numbers. That way we can understand how
9 much savings our proposals will in fact bring.
10 SENATOR WALCZYK: Through you,
11 Mr. President, will the sponsor continue to
12 yield?
13 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
14 sponsor yield?
15 SENATOR PARKER: Yes.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
17 sponsor yields.
18 SENATOR WALCZYK: Does this
19 one-house budget resolution include
20 Senator O'Mara's bill on ratepayer transparency
21 so they actually can see where every dollar on
22 their bill is going to all of these things?
23 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
24 Mr. President. We actually have a number of
25 proposals that create transparency, including
1319
1 language from various members, including
2 Senator Mayer, Senator Hinchey, myself and
3 others, that create a level, a significant level
4 of transparency and accountability that does not
5 currently exist either in the PSC or in the
6 rate-case process.
7 SENATOR WALCZYK: Through you,
8 Mr. President, will the sponsor continue to
9 yield?
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
11 sponsor yield?
12 SENATOR PARKER: Yes.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
14 sponsor yields.
15 SENATOR WALCZYK: The concern is
16 specifically on green energy mandates. Will
17 people be able to see what green energy projects
18 are being paid for out of their utility bill if
19 any of those proposals -- I didn't even see
20 necessarily that they were included in this
21 resolution, if they are. Will we see any of that
22 out of this resolution?
23 SENATOR PARKER: Mr. President,
24 through you. The proposals that we have put
25 forward in our one-house actually requires an
1320
1 examination of projects that is currently not
2 required either by the CLCPA or in current law.
3 And so what we're suggesting is to
4 create the kind of transparency that allows us to
5 understand what projects are being paid for, how
6 they're being paid, and where that energy is
7 going. So we hope to in fact do that.
8 SENATOR WALCZYK: And through you,
9 Mr. President, would the sponsor continue to
10 yield.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
12 sponsor yield?
13 SENATOR PARKER: Yes.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
15 sponsor yields.
16 SENATOR WALCZYK: On
17 cap-and-invest -- and I don't want to rehash a
18 lot of the things, but cap-and-invest, NYSERDA
19 estimates, will cost New Yorkers about
20 $5.7 billion additional each year. They say that
21 the program will add $2.23 per gallon of gas.
22 They say that each household energy cost can
23 anticipate $4100 a year in additional cost to the
24 ratepayer. They say that cap-and-invest will
25 cost businesses 46 percent more in utility costs.
1321
1 They say that delivery trucks will cost
2 60 percent more to run.
3 Is that affordable?
4 SENATOR PARKER: Through you,
5 Mr. President. I love Doreen Harris, but they're
6 absolutely wrong in this particular analysis.
7 Now, one, you can make numbers say
8 almost whatever you want them to say. Part of
9 what's not happening here is a real buildout of
10 understanding where the program starts and where
11 it ends. It also does not take into account the
12 money that's actually going back into communities
13 because of the care economy that's built into the
14 CLCPA -- I'm sorry, into cap-and-invest.
15 And so there -- and also what's not
16 built into there is funds that are used out of
17 NYSERDA which are off-book and don't come out of
18 the General Fund that actually pays for most of
19 the stuff that you talked about earlier with the
20 Clean Energy Fund, you know, and rebates that in
21 fact get us to a place of less energy.
22 We actually know that using
23 electric vehicles actually saves people money.
24 So creating a rebate that in fact does that
25 actually helps them both with the capital
1322
1 purchase but, more importantly, with the long --
2 over time, use of the vehicle will in fact reduce
3 the energy cost.
4 Heat pumps. The use of solar,
5 whether community aggregated or utility-scale, is
6 a much cheaper commodity for ratepayers to use
7 than oil or natural gas that they're dependent on
8 now.
9 SENATOR WALCZYK: Thank you.
10 Mr. President, on the resolution.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
12 Walczyk on the resolution.
13 SENATOR WALCZYK: You know, Doreen
14 Harris and NYSERDA has often referred to as the
15 experts that we're supposed to trust on these
16 things. But it's amazing that we don't trust the
17 experts when they show New Yorkers how much this
18 is going to cost them. That is their concern.
19 You're happy to -- you're happy to say, Oh, the
20 experts are all right on all of these climate
21 models, but when we ask them how much it's going
22 to cost -- well, ignore the cost.
23 You're ignoring New Yorkers right
24 now, and the experts. You don't want to trust
25 the experts there? The Department of Public
1323
1 Service reported in December of 2025 -- this is
2 before all of your offices started getting calls
3 about angry ratepayers over the cold months --
4 that 1.4 million customers in the State of
5 New York were 60 days or more behind in their
6 energy bills already. One in eight residential
7 customers for our utilities were already in
8 arrears in December.
9 Imagine what that looks like today.
10 People can't afford -- they're not even paying
11 their energy bills right now. I don't know how I
12 could say it any louder or how I could emphasize
13 it on their behalf any more. They can't pay what
14 you've already done, and you're asking them to do
15 more.
16 And you've ignored compromise.
17 There's 63 Senators in here. Twenty-nine of you
18 have signed on to a letter saying we don't want
19 to move on the CLCPA. Got it. Guess what?
20 That's no longer the majority. The majority in
21 this body says we do want changes to the CLCPA.
22 The majority of New Yorkers that can't afford it
23 say that they want changes to the CLCPA because
24 they can't afford their utility bills now.
25 You have an obligation not to
1324
1 respond to me, to respond to the people of the
2 State of New York who are saying what you're
3 doing is unaffordable. And in your one-house
4 bill resolution today you've completely missed
5 that opportunity.
6 Stop raising our energy prices.
7 Thank you, Mr. President.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
9 Walczyk on the resolution.
10 Senator Borrello, why do you rise?
11 SENATOR BORRELLO: Thank you,
12 Mr. President. I would like to ask a question
13 about HMH Article VII new Part KK, the gender
14 affirming care access program, if somebody would
15 answer that question.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
17 Senator Rivera will be responding.
18 Senator Rivera, do you yield to
19 questions?
20 SENATOR RIVERA: I yield.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
22 Rivera yields.
23 SENATOR BORRELLO: Through you,
24 Mr. President. This is a new program that was
25 created, the Gender Affirming Care Access
1325
1 Program. Does this Gender Affirming Care Access
2 Program you're creating and funding allow minors
3 to receive gender-affirming care?
4 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
5 Mr. President. Gender-affirming care -- I should
6 say age-appropriate gender-affirming care is a
7 necessary thing for people all around our country
8 and for, in this case, young people in this state
9 and around our country.
10 I understand that my colleague
11 perhaps -- or certainly -- you know what, I will
12 not speak of my colleague. But certainly folks
13 on the other side of the aisle like to paint this
14 terrible picture, this horrible scene in which
15 kids are manipulated into trying to become
16 something that they are not, where they're
17 operated on without their consent or their
18 parents' consent or some other terrible thing.
19 As opposed to that, gender-affirming
20 care, Mr. President, age-appropriate
21 gender-affirming care is making sure that when
22 there are young kids who are going through a
23 situation in their lives where they're trying to
24 find out who they are, they can be supported.
25 Not through operations or other things that some
1326
1 folks on the right have been trying to make seem
2 like it was happening. No, no, no.
3 What we're talking about is
4 age-appropriate gender-affirming care to make
5 sure that kids and their parents who are going
6 through a situation in which they're trying to
7 figure out who they are, can be supported. And
8 when they reach the appropriate age,
9 Mr. President, and under medical supervision,
10 they could potentially have medical procedures,
11 have drugs that they might take, etc.
12 So just -- I just want to make sure
13 that as far as the definition of what we're
14 talking about, that is what we're talking about,
15 and so -- when we speak about gender-affirming
16 care.
17 And as far as this is concerned, as
18 this particular program or part in the budget, it
19 is a very -- it is similar to a bill that is
20 carried by one of our colleagues here in this
21 chamber, Senator Gonzalez. And it would be -- it
22 will create a fund that would be available for --
23 to support parents and children that are going
24 through this type of situation.
25 So it would indeed, Mr. President,
1327
1 impact minors. It would indeed impact folks who
2 are not 18. But it would indeed include their
3 parents and would indeed be done with
4 professionals who care deeply about these young
5 people and the situations that they're going
6 through.
7 SENATOR BORRELLO: Mr. President,
8 will the sponsor continue to yield.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
10 sponsor yield?
11 SENATOR RIVERA: I do.
12 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
13 sponsor yields.
14 SENATOR BORRELLO: All right, so
15 you confirm that children under the age of 18
16 will have access to this.
17 But you brought up parents. So can
18 you explain to me where in here it requires
19 parental consent and parental notification to get
20 that care? I don't see that here.
21 (Pause.)
22 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
23 Mr. President, this current proposal does not
24 change anything in current state law. Current
25 state law requires this parental consent.
1328
1 But again, there's a reference, an
2 inference that people are supposed to make from
3 this conversation and from the types of questions
4 that are being asked. And I repeat again, we are
5 not talking about some horror version of some
6 transformation that happens to people without
7 them wanting it. We're talking about young
8 children who, yes, are under 18 and therefore
9 still under their parents' care. But we're
10 talking about the type of age-appropriate
11 gender-affirming care that might be given to
12 them.
13 It does not necessarily
14 include surgery, does not necessarily include
15 pharmaceuticals. But it does include care for
16 those individuals and a respect for who they are.
17 So there's going to be all sorts of
18 inferences. But the direct question -- the
19 direct answer, Mr. President, is that there's
20 nothing in reference in this particular part that
21 refers to parental consent, but it does not
22 change anything in current state law, which
23 refers to parental consent.
24 SENATOR BORRELLO: Through you,
25 Mr. President, will the sponsor continue to
1329
1 yield?
2 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
3 sponsor yield?
4 SENATOR RIVERA: I do.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
6 sponsor yields.
7 SENATOR BORRELLO: I think it's
8 very clear that there is no parental consent
9 required. It's happened time and time again. In
10 fact, schools are prohibited from telling parents
11 should a child come to them and talk about, you
12 know, their gender issues.
13 So I guess I'm going to ask the
14 question, then, what part of the law in New York
15 State outside of this bill would require parental
16 consent before a child could get live-changing
17 surgery or medication?
18 SENATOR RIVERA: Mr. President,
19 through you. I will say it once again. And now
20 my colleague says it directly. There is no
21 situation in which there will be some sort of
22 transformation without a process that an
23 individual goes through.
24 This is -- I have a -- I have a
25 trans niece, Mr. President, a trans niece who
1330
1 lives in the worst place to live in this country
2 at this moment for her situation, Florida,
3 Mr. President, after the election, reelection of
4 the person who currently sits in the White House.
5 She works at an Au Bon Pain or
6 something like that, one of these places that
7 makes French sandwiches or whatever. A person in
8 a red hat, somebody wearing a nice red hat orders
9 a sandwich, sees my niece making the sandwich,
10 and then proceeds to berate her loudly and
11 publicly in the restaurant, saying "I don't want
12 that" -- and then said a slur -- "making my
13 frigging sandwich." Had to be escorted outside.
14 My niece had to go back home.
15 This person felt empowered to say
16 those things. I believe that what we're talking
17 about here, while it may be couched in a
18 conversation about this particular piece of the
19 one-house budget proposal, has this broader
20 stigma attached to it. As though when we say
21 gender-affirming care, we're talking about kids
22 being taken away from their parents and being
23 transformed without their consent.
24 That is not what gender-affirming
25 care is, regardless of what my colleagues believe
1331
1 or what certain people on the right believe.
2 And so I once again will say there's
3 no one who is snatched from their parents' arms
4 and transformed into something that they're not,
5 and taken away from their families. That's not
6 what gender-affirming care is. It never was, it
7 never has been. And this certainly does not
8 provide for anything like that to happen in the
9 State of New York.
10 As opposed to that, it proposes the
11 creation of a fund which would support
12 individuals, parents and children, that are going
13 through this process so that they can do so with
14 care and with love and with support.
15 SENATOR BORRELLO: Mr. President,
16 on the bill.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
18 Borrello on the resolution.
19 SENATOR BORRELLO: So I really
20 didn't get any real answers to the questions, but
21 I appreciate your stories.
22 There's another part of this bill
23 that's also concerning for me. I was going to
24 ask the question, but I'm not going to get an
25 answer. And that's the fact that this money
1332
1 could be used to help pay for doctors' liability
2 and malpractice insurance. And we all are aware
3 of the fact that there was just a recent New York
4 case where a jury awarded $2 million to a
5 gender-transitioned patient who was transitioned
6 as a minor but, later, courts determined that she
7 had been unlawfully pressured and the doctors
8 ultimately were found liable of medical
9 malpractice for pushing her to have the
10 gender-affirming surgeries.
11 So now we're going to allow more of
12 that, and we're going to cover the cost for these
13 doctors to do this.
14 What's interesting about this is
15 this. In New York State you have to be 21 to buy
16 alcohol or marijuana. You have to be 18 to get a
17 tattoo. If a minor wants to get their ears
18 pierced -- ears pierced -- they have to have
19 parental permission, and when they go there, they
20 actually have to have a copy of the child's birth
21 certificate and the parent needs to present their
22 photo ID to prove who they are. Shocking.
23 But if a 6-year-old decides that
24 today I don't think I'm a boy anymore, I'm a
25 girl, that can happen with no safeguards in
1333
1 place. And this fund, this fund will allow that
2 to happen.
3 Now, I don't have an issue with
4 someone who's an adult who makes an adult
5 decision about something that is irreversible.
6 Irreversible. But I do have an issue with a
7 child doing so. And that's the problem with
8 this. It's reprehensible, and I'll be voting no.
9 Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
11 Ashby, why do you rise?
12 SENATOR ASHBY: Good afternoon,
13 Mr. President. Would the appropriate Senator
14 yield for questions regarding HMH Part H?
15 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
16 Rivera, will you be yielding to the questions?
17 SENATOR RIVERA: Yup.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
19 Rivera yields.
20 SENATOR ASHBY: Through you,
21 Mr. President. This has to deal with material
22 transactions. There had been in place a
23 $25 million threshold. Now, additional
24 regulations will be in place when they exceed
25 $100 million, or when deemed necessary.
1334
1 Has there been any consideration to
2 what this will do in terms of increasing
3 Medicaid expenses?
4 (Pause.)
5 SENATOR RIVERA: Through you,
6 Mr. President. So this particular part of the
7 one-house budget proposal has to do with what are
8 known as material transactions. In the State of
9 New York we would -- we not only have it in law,
10 but we certainly want to make sure that as many
11 of our dollars go to actual care as possible.
12 The reality is that in some
13 situations -- so I should back up. So for that
14 to be the case, we want to make sure that
15 facilities that provide care should be owned by
16 folks who provide care.
17 But unfortunately, some of the ways
18 that it works sometimes, because private equity
19 gets involved, as you know, Mr. President, and
20 figures out a way to make money somewhere, there
21 are some times where there's all these sorts of
22 transactions that happen when the cousin or the
23 niece or the nephew or the brother or the father
24 then owns the building and then rents it out, and
25 then the cleaning company that's owned by this
1335
1 and -- there's all sorts of things that might
2 happen there that ultimately mean the dollars
3 that should go from the State of New York to care
4 instead are going to fatten the pockets of
5 somebody who's just figured out to how to move
6 the stacks around so that -- so that they can
7 make some money in -- by owning a building, then
8 renting the building to themselves, et cetera,
9 et cetera, et cetera.
10 So the hundred millions that we're
11 talking about are for the sake of the Department
12 of Health -- they have the discretion to use as
13 much as that to do further investigation, further
14 searches, if you will, to determine whether these
15 types of things are happening.
16 So that's -- that's ultimately what
17 this is about. This is not about -- this is not
18 about more money being charged to -- for -- to
19 taxpayers, et cetera. It's about allowing the
20 Department of Health to have a pot of money that
21 they would have the discretion to use to further
22 these investigations to determine whether the law
23 is being followed.
24 SENATOR ASHBY: Through you,
25 Mr. President, will the sponsor continue to
1336
1 yield?
2 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
3 sponsor yield?
4 SENATOR RIVERA: Yes.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
6 sponsor yields.
7 SENATOR ASHBY: So I'll take that
8 as a no.
9 In terms of the length of time to
10 delay these transactions, it's 180 days. That's
11 six months. And certainly I can see this being
12 applied when there are bad actors, right, but in
13 many instances there are not bad actors. And in
14 rural areas, for example, and in nonrural areas,
15 there are non-bad actors where, when they face
16 this hurdle, they're simply going to close rather
17 than merge, then leaving their patients in
18 deserts, healthcare deserts.
19 Has this been examined?
20 (Pause.)
21 SENATOR RIVERA: So through you,
22 Mr. President, certainly I'm -- we should
23 consider the conversation we had a little earlier
24 about that extra money that we're putting into
25 the budget that -- into this one-house budget
1337
1 proposal that some of my colleagues criticized
2 that has to do with providing support to
3 distressed providers.
4 I'm certainly aware of parts of the
5 state that are healthcare deserts or that have --
6 or have a dearth of services. But in this case
7 what we're saying is that it is -- this is not
8 intended to -- this is not intended to stop the
9 folks who are good actors. Instead, it is meant
10 to dissuade those who are bad actors.
11 And the -- and we found that -- that
12 is ultimately the goal of this. And it is not to
13 dissuade individuals from acquiring, you know,
14 healthcare facilities if they're going to do so.
15 But we just want to make sure that
16 we have a little bit of extra time to make sure
17 that if these types of changes are happening,
18 that they're being done as a way to make sure
19 that more care can be provided and not just some
20 more money can be made by certain people that
21 might be involved. And I certainly think that
22 that's a good thing that the state should do.
23 SENATOR ASHBY: On the resolution.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
25 Ashby on the resolution.
1338
1 SENATOR ASHBY: Mr. President, what
2 will eventually happen with this is that the
3 patients who are unable to be seen because these
4 mergers are being denied over a six-month period,
5 huge fines being in place, is they will go to the
6 hospital to be seen.
7 Which will drive up medical costs,
8 because everybody in this body knows that
9 hospital costs for healthcare and Medicaid are
10 higher than a physician's office. And that
11 doesn't just have to be with primary care, that's
12 specialty care as well. So that's cancer care.
13 That's OB care. That's across the board driving
14 them into a setting that is more expensive, will
15 drive up Medicaid costs continuously.
16 I will be voting no. Thank you.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
18 you, Senator Ashby.
19 Senator Borrello, why do you rise?
20 SENATOR BORRELLO: Thank you,
21 Mr. President.
22 Coming up for a second time here.
23 So I'm wearing this sport coat; I had to.
24 So would somebody answer a question
25 on Part VV for me? VV.
1339
1 Of what. Good question. I didn't
2 get that part. It's a question about they
3 were -- you're striking the word "citizen" in
4 that section. Good question. I'm not sure.
5 (Pause.)
6 SENATOR KRUEGER: We're looking for
7 it.
8 SENATOR BORRELLO: We'll come back
9 around later. Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
11 Gianaris.
12 SENATOR GIANARIS: Thank you. And
13 as we search for the section of the resolution
14 that Senator Borrello is referring to, let me
15 remind everyone we're now 15 minutes away from
16 the two-hour mark.
17 And so with remaining members who
18 have questions, just understand the time frame.
19 Thank you.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
21 Martins, why do you rise?
22 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you,
23 Mr. President. I had a question -- or a few
24 questions on SEQRA. And I was hoping someone
25 would answer just a few questions.
1340
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
2 Senator Harckham will be responding.
3 Senator Harckham, do you yield?
4 SENATOR HARCKHAM: I do,
5 Mr. President.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
7 Harckham yields to questions.
8 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you,
9 Senator.
10 This proposal differs from the
11 Governor's proposal, isn't that correct?
12 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Through you,
13 Mr. President, it does. It narrows the focus of
14 what the Governor was trying to do.
15 We base -- through you,
16 Mr. President -- our notion of what this should
17 be on a bill this chamber passed before, a
18 Senator May bill, much narrower focus,
19 multifamily housing, focused on urban and
20 semi-urban infill, as opposed to sprawl and other
21 projects that the Governor had included.
22 SENATOR MARTINS: Through you,
23 Mr. President, if the Senator would continue to
24 yield.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
1341
1 sponsor yield?
2 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Yes.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
4 sponsor yields.
5 SENATOR MARTINS: This bill
6 would -- or this provision would effectively
7 determine that there is no impact under certain
8 circumstances for the construction of multifamily
9 homes in communities. Isn't that right?
10 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Through you,
11 Mr. President, it would do a few things.
12 One, it narrows and puts a finite
13 timeline on the environmental impact statement.
14 So that would be limited to a year.
15 And then yes, essentially if a
16 property had been developed, redeveloped, and was
17 an infill site, yes, it would effectively do
18 that. As opposed to, you know, a new virgin
19 site. That would be a different thing.
20 SENATOR MARTINS: Mr. President,
21 through you, if the Senator would continue to
22 yield.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
24 sponsor yield?
25 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Yes.
1342
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
2 sponsor yields.
3 SENATOR MARTINS: So if we tear
4 down houses to build multifamily housing, that
5 property has already been disturbed and therefore
6 there would be a presumption, given certain
7 parameters that are in the language of this
8 provision, that that could be built without
9 consideration of the impacts because it would be
10 determined, because of the language of this bill,
11 that there are no impacts.
12 (Pause.)
13 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Through you,
14 Mr. President. It could require -- necessitate
15 an exemption from SEQRA, but it does not exempt
16 whatever the project is from the regular local
17 zoning and planning and other environmental
18 regulations that there may be, either statewide
19 or through the municipality.
20 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you,
21 Senator.
22 Mr. President, on the resolution.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
24 Martins on the resolution.
25 SENATOR MARTINS: So that's the
1343
1 issue with this particular piece, is that it
2 presupposes that the local government, through
3 their permitting process, has the same effect of
4 SEQRA, which it doesn't.
5 Anyone who understands the process
6 and the burden that this places on our local
7 communities, on our villages and towns and
8 cities, has to understand that merely saying that
9 you can build 200 units in a community of less
10 than 90,000 people without doing an impact
11 statement and allowing for people and the
12 developer to mitigate those costs, is a mistake.
13 Whether it's water resources, sewer resources,
14 whether it is the impact on the local community,
15 and whether it's a right fit, height, density.
16 It doesn't speak to how big the
17 property has to be, how many units per acre. It
18 just says in a community -- and there are various
19 stages here -- you can build up to a certain
20 amount with no impact.
21 Now, the consequence of that,
22 Mr. President, not only is that we're taking away
23 the opportunity for a local community to properly
24 gauge what the impact is -- and they have every
25 right to do so.
1344
1 But if you understand land use and
2 you go beyond what the SEQRA requirements are, if
3 they go and ask for a variance and an area
4 variance, Mr. President, part of the
5 determination of an area variance in a community
6 is whether or not the impacts to the community
7 are offset by the benefit from the project.
8 And if you're going to presuppose
9 that there is no impact from the project, you are
10 already putting your finger on the scale and
11 forcing that community to build, and you are
12 undermining zoning in every community of this
13 state.
14 So for those of us who are concerned
15 about the environment, if you are -- and I know,
16 Senator, you are -- how do we do that and not
17 allow for those items to be properly measured and
18 properly determined in a way that is respectful
19 for that local community?
20 This is a mistake. SEQRA can and
21 should be streamlined. But this goes too far.
22 Mr. President, one more series of
23 questions with regard to PPGG, Part L and PPGG
24 Part M, having to do with immigration, if the
25 sponsor would yield.
1345
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Yes, I
2 believe Senator Myrie will be responding.
3 Senator Myrie, do you yield?
4 SENATOR MYRIE: Yes.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
6 sponsor yields.
7 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you,
8 Senator.
9 I notice that these parts were
10 eliminated from the Governor's budget altogether.
11 Is that because the majority disagree with the
12 Governor and feels that the Governor has gone too
13 far with regard to these provisions and therefore
14 wants no part of it? Or is it because you
15 believe that the Governor's provision doesn't go
16 far enough and you want to address it outside of
17 the budget? Which is it?
18 SENATOR MYRIE: Through you,
19 Mr. President. And I appreciate the question.
20 I think we make clear in our
21 resolution language that we are concerned about
22 some of the actions that we have seen, some of
23 the constitutionality questions, some of the
24 immigration enforcement that has had
25 disproportionate impacts on particular
1346
1 communities throughout the state.
2 And this is a complex area of law.
3 We had, as a state, taken action in this space
4 six years ago when we passed the Protect Our
5 Courts Act that was challenged in our courts and
6 upheld as constitutional.
7 And so the state has an ability to
8 exercise its constitutional power. We respect
9 and appreciate the constitutional power that the
10 federal government has in the immigration space.
11 And because of that, we think that this is a
12 conversation that should be happening outside of
13 the budget.
14 SENATOR MARTINS: Through you,
15 Mr. President, if the Senator would continue to
16 yield.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
18 sponsor yield?
19 SENATOR MYRIE: Yes.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
21 sponsor yields.
22 SENATOR MARTINS: So is the
23 Majority taking a position with regard to the
24 language? Is it -- is it not -- does it not go
25 far enough? Or is it just too much and therefore
1347
1 you believe the Governor has gone too far?
2 I'm just looking for clarity with
3 regard to the majority's position in repealing or
4 removing these sections from the resolution.
5 SENATOR MYRIE: Through you,
6 Mr. President. Our Majority Leader I think has
7 been clear publicly about the sentiment of our
8 conference in wanting to move forward on policies
9 surrounding immigration.
10 I note that the Governor herself put
11 this conversation outside of the budget by
12 introducing three program bills, which to us
13 indicates that she wants to have this
14 conversation outside of the budget as well. So
15 we look forward to working with the Assembly and
16 the Governor to make that happen.
17 SENATOR MARTINS: And of course --
18 through you, Mr. President. And of course I'm
19 sure the Senator means with every Senator in this
20 chamber as well.
21 Thank you very much. And thank you,
22 Senator.
23 SENATOR MYRIE: Thank you.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
25 Borrello, why do you rise?
1348
1 SENATOR BORRELLO: I'm back. I do
2 have the section now: Part VV of TED.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: I believe
4 Senator Harckham will be responding.
5 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Right,
6 Mr. President. Sorry. Scribbling my notes. I
7 apologize, Mr. President. Apologize, Senator.
8 SENATOR BORRELLO: Will the sponsor
9 yield for a question?
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Will the
11 sponsor yield?
12 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Absolutely.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
14 sponsor yields.
15 SENATOR BORRELLO: So interesting
16 that 19 times in this section you struck the word
17 "citizen" and replaced it with "community." Can
18 you explain why?
19 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Yeah. Thank
20 you, Mr. President. Through you. Just it's a
21 broader term. It's more inclusive.
22 SENATOR BORRELLO: Thank you,
23 Mr. President.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
25 Oberacker, why do you rise?
1349
1 SENATOR OBERACKER: Thank you,
2 Mr. President. I was wondering if I could get a
3 answer to agriculture.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
5 Krueger, will you be responding?
6 SENATOR KRUEGER: I'm going to fill
7 in for agriculture, yes.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Okay. Do
9 you yield, Senator Krueger.
10 SENATOR KRUEGER: Yes, I do.
11 SENATOR OBERACKER: Thank you.
12 Through you, Mr. President. And I would like it
13 duly noted the fact that my question,
14 Senator Krueger, will pertain to meat processing
15 and meat processing plants.
16 And the fact that I am dressed as a
17 cattleman today is strictly a coincidence that I
18 would like duly noted.
19 So with that, Senator Krueger, the
20 one-house fails to include funding for meat
21 processing grants, and farmers have continued to
22 express their concerns around the meat processing
23 availability in this state.
24 So my question is -- through you,
25 Mr. President -- why did the Senate fail to
1350
1 include another round of funding for meat
2 processing grants?
3 SENATOR KRUEGER: Through you,
4 Mr. President. I will openly confess we
5 predicted this question, and Senator Hinchey and
6 I were able to have a conversation so that I
7 would be prepared for you. So thank you for
8 asking the right question.
9 (Laughter.)
10 SENATOR KRUEGER: So to answer, we
11 created a funding stream previously to provide a
12 grant program a few years ago to meet these
13 needs, and it was a Senate add. It's been very
14 successful. And in fact the funding was
15 oversubscribed, so we did another year. That
16 hasn't gone out yet, but it's going out very,
17 very soon. So I'm just reading the notes.
18 The program was for the first time
19 oversubscribed. We did a second round. It
20 should be going out the door soon. Ag and
21 Markets did an RFP. The Hudson Valley
22 Agribusiness Development Corporation is who
23 distributes the money. And we have also funded
24 them in the budget as well with a line item, to
25 help them with ensuring that this program
1351
1 continues to move forward and that the money does
2 get spent.
3 And I suspect if we were to ask
4 Senator Hinchey on another day, she would say
5 sounds like we'll probably want to fight for this
6 yet again next year.
7 SENATOR OBERACKER: Thank you,
8 Senator Krueger.
9 On the reso, Mr. President.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
11 Oberacker on the resolution.
12 SENATOR OBERACKER: Thank you for
13 that answer.
14 Mr. President, you know, our farmers
15 spend a lot of time, effort and of course money
16 into getting their cattle ready to be sent to
17 market. Any day after that is a maintenance
18 program, which is extremely expensive and would
19 also be an issue when it comes to quality.
20 You know, we have a saying, we say
21 no farms, no food. Well, in this case, if we
22 don't have the availability to process that food,
23 we won't have the farms.
24 So with that I thank you,
25 Senator Krueger, for that, and I would encourage
1352
1 all of us to get behind this type of movement.
2 So Mr. President, thank you very
3 much.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
5 you, Senator Oberacker.
6 Senator Rhoads, why do you rise?
7 SENATOR RHOADS: To speak on the
8 resolution.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
10 Rhoads on the resolution.
11 SENATOR RHOADS: Thank you,
12 Mr. President.
13 I want to thank all my colleagues
14 for the debate today. I did have some questions,
15 but I'm just going to speak on the bill.
16 I have heard the word "Washington"
17 come out of the mouths of my colleagues on the
18 other side of the aisle more than I've heard
19 about Albany, more than I've heard about our
20 constituents.
21 We're ignoring the problems that
22 we're creating right here in this chamber. We
23 talk about policies that are coming out of
24 Washington. Let's take a look at what New York
25 has done since 2019, when you have been in
1353
1 charge, where New York stands in comparison to
2 every other state.
3 We have the second-highest total tax
4 burden between income, property and sales tax in
5 the country. Highest individual tax burden in
6 the country. Fourth-highest property tax burden
7 in the country.
8 Our residential electricity
9 rates are 50.7 percent higher than the national
10 average. Commercial electricity rates,
11 61.6 percent higher than the national average.
12 Home prices, 27 percent higher than the national
13 average. Auto insurance, 41 percent higher than
14 the national average. Childcare, 17.6 percent
15 higher than the national average. We have the
16 second-worst business climate in the country.
17 The Tax Foundation ranks us dead last -- dead
18 last -- in tax competitiveness. We're number one
19 in outward migration. We've lost a million of
20 our residents since 2020. One New Yorker leaves
21 this state for somewhere else every two minutes
22 and 23 seconds.
23 And what do we do with this bill
24 today in our chamber? We make it worse. We
25 raise taxes by $5.6 billion. We raise taxes on
1354
1 small businesses. We raise taxes on large
2 businesses. Rather than telling New York City to
3 tighten its belt, we bend a knee to the whims of
4 our socialist mayor, providing direct aid and tax
5 authorizations for another $5.1 billion on top of
6 the taxes that we're already raising.
7 We do nothing about Medicaid fraud.
8 Empire Center says that we spent $2.1 billion on
9 non-New Yorkers. Three million people more are
10 on the rolls than are financially eligible for
11 Medicaid in New York State.
12 We do nothing about NYSERDA.
13 Democrats' radical environmental policies will
14 cost the average New Yorker $4100 a year, will
15 raise the price of a gallon of gas within
16 five years by an extra $2.23 a gallon. We do
17 nothing about it.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
19 you, Senator Rhoads. Appreciate your time, but
20 we have reached that two-hour mark where debate
21 is now closed.
22 We'll call the roll at this time.
23 (The Secretary called the roll.)
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: As we go
25 into vote explanations, I remind the house that
1355
1 we are limited to two minutes per member to
2 explain your vote, and we will be looking to
3 maintain that two-minute time frame.
4 Senator Ryan to explain his vote.
5 SENATOR RYAN: You know, I want to
6 talk a little bit about why I'm going to vote for
7 this, and talk about energy.
8 I think it was said that with
9 respect to energy that not one thing was done for
10 New Yorkers. I disagree with that. I take
11 exception to that. I believe that we are passing
12 a bill that adds additional inappropriate utility
13 expenses for its review for the Public Service
14 Commission.
15 We are requiring utilities to return
16 revenues in excess of their authorized return,
17 and equity back to taxpayers. And we're going to
18 modify the Executive proposal to limit utility
19 recovery of retroactive rate increase charges
20 back to ratepayers. I think that's a good thing.
21 It's transparency. And I'm dismayed as to why
22 anybody would be voting against that.
23 Second, I want to tell you a little
24 bit about -- we talk a lot about energy prices
25 and affordability, and I think there's a lot of
1356
1 conversations and I think, quite frankly, a lot
2 of misinformation. And quite frankly, I think a
3 lot of it's disingenuous. I had a little -- I'll
4 tell you a quick story, and this is why I'm
5 talking.
6 I had a little epiphany over the
7 weekend. I happened to be visiting my brother
8 and sister-in-law in the great state of
9 Pennsylvania. And my brother-in-law happens to
10 be in the banking business and the commercial
11 lending business. We talked about energy, we
12 were talking a little bit of politics, and he
13 said, You know, it's hard and a lot of people
14 aren't borrowing so much money because --
15 businesses aren't, because of the costs of their
16 natural gas in business and the utility bills.
17 The point to that story is I would
18 remind everybody that Pennsylvania is having the
19 same problem that we are. And guess what they
20 don't have? The CLCPA that everybody keeps
21 blaming that on.
22 So I also want to talk about the
23 NYSERDA report that everybody keeps talking
24 about. There's also another report, the New York
25 State Independent System Operators, which talks
1357
1 about the price of utilities, the volatility of
2 the gas market. And as we say back home, yes,
3 you don't have to be an economist to understand
4 that when the price of gas goes up and it's a
5 colder winter and you use more of it, then it's
6 going to go up.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
8 you, Senator Ryan.
9 SENATOR RYAN: Let's talk about the
10 inconvenient truth {inaudible}.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
12 Tedisco to explain his vote for two minutes.
13 SENATOR TEDISCO: Thank you,
14 Mr. President.
15 My colleagues on that side of the
16 aisle in 2019, I believe, and for the last seven,
17 eight years, have had the trifecta with the
18 Assembly. You control all levers of power. '21,
19 '22, '23, '24, Joe Biden was the president. It
20 was budgets like this, over the last eight years,
21 where you had full control -- and the taxpayers
22 should know that -- of government, all levers of
23 power. That we were number one in outmigration,
24 one of seven states that lost another
25 representative in 2022, when Joe Biden and you
1358
1 were in total control. We're projected to lose
2 two more representatives in 2032.
3 And this is -- Mr. Rhoads talks
4 about -- Senator Rhoads -- this is interstate
5 migration in minutes, how fast are taxpayers
6 leaving states. And we're 48th. Every 2 minutes
7 and 23 seconds, somebody leaves the State of
8 New York. Not to go to Disneyland or take a
9 vacation, to live in another state.
10 Only California is one minute and
11 44 seconds. Forty-eight other states retain
12 people.
13 That exodus is going to continue.
14 You've all seen Casablanca where the sheriff
15 walks in, Claude Rains: "I'm shocked that
16 there's gambling in this casino." Humphrey
17 Bogart.
18 You're shocked, with the Governor,
19 that there's an affordability problem? You
20 created the affordability problem. And I don't
21 know, I sent this to all the media, I haven't
22 heard a word about it. If I was in a state where
23 every two minutes or so people walked out, I
24 would be talking about that. And I think this is
25 another thing that's going to create an exodus.
1359
1 We're not going to be the
2 Empire State. And it's a beautiful state.
3 People should be staying and coming here. We're
4 going to be the empty state if budgets like this
5 continue, with more taxing and spending.
6 Thank you, Mr. President.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
8 Tedisco to be recorded in the negative.
9 Senator Murray to explain his vote
10 for two minutes.
11 SENATOR MURRAY: Thank you,
12 Mr. President. I actually was going to get up
13 and ask some questions, but I understood, we ran
14 out of time.
15 So I just want to point out one
16 particular portion of the resolution, the Safe By
17 Design Act. And listen, when we talk about
18 business and small business and the things that
19 we impose on them, I don't think it's done for
20 nefarious reasons or bad reasons. In fact, I
21 think it's -- for the most part, it's good
22 intentions. But it's the understanding of what
23 the implications those good intentions have.
24 So here's what this says it is. By
25 the way, all of these pages are describing this
1360
1 act. But it says privacy by default. No
2 operator shall offer a covered platform in the
3 state without conducting age assurance to
4 reasonably determine whether a user is a covered
5 minor.
6 So we go to what's a covered
7 platform. Well, that shall mean an online
8 platform. Well, what do we mean by online
9 platform? Well, that shall mean a public or
10 semipublic website, online service, online
11 application or mobile application that -- and
12 then we go on to all these subsections.
13 At the end of the day, I'm a small
14 business owner going, Wait a minute, am I going
15 to have to do this? Am I going to have to
16 implement this? How much is it going to cost?
17 How quickly do I have to do it? If I don't,
18 what's the penalty?
19 This is what we do to
20 small businesses in New York over and over and
21 over again.
22 For that reason, and the increases
23 in taxes and everything else, I'll be voting no
24 on this resolution.
25 Thank you, Mr. President.
1361
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
2 Murray to be recorded in the negative.
3 Senator May to explain her vote for
4 two minutes.
5 SENATOR MAY: Thank you,
6 Mr. President.
7 It has been quaint hearing our
8 colleagues across the aisle preach fiscal
9 responsibility and affordability while they and
10 their party cede absolute unchecked power to a
11 man who is literally burning through billions of
12 dollars a day with an illegal war, with masked
13 thugs in our streets, with building concentration
14 camps for immigrant children, lining his own
15 pockets and the pockets of his billionaire
16 buddies while he's picking the pockets of my
17 constituents, the farmers and small business
18 owners who have to navigate between his tariffs
19 and trade wars and now spiking costs of gas.
20 And the institutions that are
21 linchpins of many of our upstate economies --
22 higher education, hospitals -- he is targeting
23 them with precision, trying to ruin their
24 business models.
25 With this budget document, we are
1362
1 asserting that New York is still a civilized
2 state where we feed the hungry, house the
3 homeless, care for children, and invest in
4 infrastructure, agriculture, environmental
5 protection, science and public health. And where
6 we defend our immigrant neighbors, trans young
7 people like my son, and the rule of law.
8 I vote aye.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
10 May to be recorded in the affirmative.
11 Senator Harckham to explain his vote
12 on the resolution.
13 SENATOR HARCKHAM: Thank you very
14 much, Mr. President.
15 First I want to align my comments
16 with Senator Ryan. Thank you very much, sir.
17 Couldn't have said it better.
18 Just a couple of quick points. This
19 $2.4 billion that we keep hearing about that
20 needs to be returned to ratepayers, it's
21 fictitious. We should not be selling
22 red herrings to our constituents. That money is
23 accounted for. It's going to programs.
24 Just because it's sitting in an
25 account does not mean it's not targeted for
1363
1 programs. We can look at state accounts and find
2 tens of billions of dollars sitting there. They
3 just haven't gotten out the door yet.
4 The second point I would say is that
5 we are taking energy affordability very seriously
6 in here. We have a number of measures by
7 Senator May and by Senator Hinchey and others --
8 or Senator Mayer, actually, targeting how the PSC
9 structures rates. We're taking a long-term
10 structural approach.
11 And then as Senator Parker
12 mentioned, through clean energy, by restoring the
13 NY-SUN program we will be saving ratepayers
14 $1 billion annually because we will be providing
15 them more affordable clean energy.
16 As has been said many times on this
17 floor, it is the price of natural gas that is
18 driving the high prices of energy. There is no
19 proof that it is the policies of the CLCPA,
20 because as Senator Parker has mentioned, the
21 Governor hasn't even started implementation yet.
22 I will be voting aye on this
23 resolution.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
25 Harckham to be recorded in the affirmative.
1364
1 Senator Bailey to explain his vote.
2 SENATOR BAILEY: Thank you,
3 Mr. President.
4 I'm grateful for this opportunity to
5 be able to speak on the resolution.
6 I just wanted to correct one thing
7 on the -- from the prior debate. And I do thank
8 Senator Helming and my colleagues for debate.
9 We spoke about the sweep of funds
10 for the -- out of the death insurance, fraud
11 prevention. That was rejected explicitly in the
12 one-house.
13 And the reason why we rejected that
14 sweep is because we do value making sure that we
15 do combat fraud. And it's the beginning of a
16 conversation. The one-house is a statement of
17 our conference's values, led by the great
18 Andrea Stewart-Cousins. And our values are that
19 we do want to save New Yorkers money. We do want
20 to get to the heart of affordability. We do want
21 to make sure that New Yorkers are saving more.
22 If you note what we didn't have a
23 conversation about, I guess for good reason, is
24 that anything that was in the Executive Budget
25 that related to automatic discounts, we accepted,
1365
1 because we think that New Yorkers should be
2 getting more discounts, more reporting, more
3 data. We accepted those provisions.
4 When it came to the Article VII
5 language, that came to what defines or what may
6 happen with auto insurance, we wanted to have a
7 deeper conversation. Because, Mr. President,
8 New Yorkers are facing mental health reasons,
9 financial reasons. And you know, we need to make
10 sure that we're taking care of New Yorkers.
11 So -- and the last thing I'll say is
12 that it was alleged about hope. In our
13 one-house, we don't talk about hope. We spoke
14 about a commitment. There is a commitment to
15 have a conversation with all stakeholders, from
16 the second floor, insurance, lawyers, anybody
17 that has a role. So there's no hope, there's a
18 commitment. And we commit to making sure that we
19 do our part on this side of the aisle to make
20 sure that we get through this budget process with
21 real results for affordability.
22 I vote aye, Mr. President.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
24 Bailey to be recorded in the affirmative.
25 Senator Rhoads to explain his vote.
1366
1 SENATOR RHOADS: It's ironic to --
2 I'm back. It's ironic to hear my colleagues
3 talking about affordability when in reality your
4 policies are making the state less affordable.
5 It's great to talk about the hungry
6 and the homeless when your policies are creating
7 more hungry and homeless.
8 You're spending, in this budget --
9 when you took charge, we spent $164 billion as a
10 state. This budget will be just a tick under
11 $270 billion, a 61 percent increase in spending
12 by the state.
13 Inflation is at 2.4 percent this
14 year. You're going to raise operating spending
15 by 10.8 percent -- quadruple, quadruple the rate
16 of inflation. And at the same time you ignore
17 policies introduced by this side of the aisle
18 that would actually help the issue.
19 HCRA taxes account for 5 to
20 6 billion dollars annually. We have a bill by
21 Senator Gallivan that would repeal those taxes
22 and actually save the average family 1400 on
23 healthcare premiums per year.
24 No income taxes on overtime, by
25 Senator Martins. Senator Weber, a three-year
1367
1 freeze on property taxes that would save every
2 one of our constituents, every one of our
3 property owners money.
4 Myself, with the single largest tax
5 cut in the history of New York State, which could
6 be paid for by slowing the rate of growth to the
7 same 2 percent cap that every other municipality
8 lives by, that would save the average taxpayer
9 $5,000 a year.
10 Those solutions you don't touch.
11 It's more taxes, it's more spending, and it's
12 exacerbating the affordability death spiral that
13 the policies of this chamber over the course of
14 the last eight years have put New York in. And
15 this budget just throttles it up.
16 I'll be voting no.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
18 Rhoads to be recorded in the negative.
19 Senator Weik to explain her vote.
20 SENATOR WEIK: Thank you,
21 Mr. President. We've heard concerns about the
22 situations in Iran driving gas prices up. Yet
23 there's no proposal for a gas tax holiday in this
24 budget. My colleagues across the aisle have
25 boasted about how they're making New York more
1368
1 affordable for New Yorkers. But this budget only
2 increases taxes and spending.
3 We proposed a bill that actually
4 slashes taxes for New Yorkers and even eliminates
5 income taxes for most New Yorkers when it's fully
6 phased in. It's called the Taxpayer Rescue Plan,
7 by Senator Rhoads. Yet it's nowhere in this
8 budget.
9 This budget is an increase of
10 11.5 billion from last year's enacted budget, yet
11 there's no relief at all on the massive energy
12 increases caused by the CLCPA. No plan to
13 eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayer
14 dollars. An $11.5 billion increase, and yet the
15 basic needs of most New Yorkers are still not
16 being met.
17 This is another budget full of
18 mismanaged special-interest funding, and I vote
19 no.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
21 Weik to be recorded in the negative.
22 Senator Martins to explain his vote.
23 SENATOR MARTINS: Thank you,
24 Mr. President.
25 Mr. President, this document is not
1369
1 a serious document. I think everyone in this
2 chamber, including the Majority, knows it's not
3 going to see the light of day. You've promised
4 everything to everyone all at the same time. And
5 eventually, between now and hopefully April 1st,
6 you'll turn around and you'll tell everyone that
7 it's either the Governor's fault or somebody
8 else's fault that you're not going to be able to
9 actually write that check.
10 You've increased spending by
11 $16.1 billion year over year for state
12 operations. Think about that for a second. If
13 we could actually make this state more affordable
14 by increasing spending, you've done it. But we
15 all know that's not true, because we all hear
16 from our constituents just how unaffordable the
17 state is right now.
18 So what's your answer? You want to
19 tax corporations. I've said it before:
20 Corporations don't pay taxes. People pay taxes.
21 And they pay all of them. Taxing corporations is
22 just what politicians do as a sneaky way to pass
23 taxes on to people. Not right.
24 Own it. You're not going to be
25 affordable by just simply increasing spending.
1370
1 Mr. President, I vote no.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
3 Martins to be recorded in the negative.
4 Senator Chan to explain his vote on
5 the resolution.
6 SENATOR CHAN: Thank you,
7 Mr. President.
8 In the short two minutes that I
9 have, I hope I can cover enough and I hope I'm
10 tall enough to address this tall order of a
11 resolution.
12 I speak on behalf of the people of
13 southern Brooklyn. The cost of living upon us is
14 extremely high. It is very stressful. We are
15 borderlining on struggling. We have utility
16 bills that are outrageously high. And over the
17 past six, seven years I believe they've gone
18 upwards of 40 percent or so.
19 Here we have a golden opportunity to
20 give our ratepayers a tax holiday, save them
21 25 to 30 percent over the next one year. In some
22 cases, that can amount to two, three, four
23 thousand dollars. Yet nowhere in this resolution
24 does it address that.
25 My constituents are also very
1371
1 concerned -- right now in Brooklyn we pay the
2 highest auto insurance rates possibly in the
3 country. We have no provisions to address that.
4 And when we try to address it, we
5 talk about insurance fraud, but we never talk
6 about uninsured motorists. Because I can say
7 that almost every accident in my district
8 involves some kind of uninsured motorist. As a
9 result, the ratepayers of insurance premiums have
10 to pick up that tab through their own policy.
11 My constituents cringe every time
12 our mayor speaks. They feel that they're being
13 held hostage. Every time he speaks, my
14 constituents feel that here comes the kicker,
15 we're going to get fleeced with something else.
16 We feel that the mayor is shaking down the state,
17 the if he doesn't get what he wants, he's going
18 to take it out upon the taxpayers of New York
19 City and the residents.
20 So on that reason, my vote is no.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
22 Chan to be recorded in the negative.
23 Senator Stec to explain his vote.
24 SENATOR STEC: Thank you,
25 Mr. President, to explain my no vote on the
1372
1 Senate's one-house budget bill.
2 This budget is proposing an increase
3 from last year's 254 billion to a proposed
4 $270 billion. That's clearly not addressing our
5 affordability issue.
6 There are two key components that
7 could have made a difference to every
8 New Yorker's everyday lives that are completely
9 ignored in your one-house budget bill.
10 Energy. In 2019, New York State was
11 136 percent the national average on energy costs.
12 In 2024, it is 152 percent of the national
13 average. So this is against -- we are an outlier
14 against the national average. And oh, by the
15 way, those are over the Biden years, not the
16 Trump years.
17 One-point-four million ratepayers
18 are in arrears at least 60 days or more as of
19 December. That number could easily be twice that
20 now. That's one in four New Yorkers are
21 potentially already behind in their energy
22 payments. And yet -- and that's according to the
23 Public Service Commission, Rory Christian. Not
24 our guy, the Governor's and your guy.
25 A $4,000 increase for every annual
1373
1 energy cost for upstate homeowners, and $5.25 a
2 gallon for gas when the CLCPA is implemented.
3 That's according to NYSERDA, Doreen Harris. Your
4 guy, not our guy. These are your numbers, not
5 our numbers.
6 And yet this budget proposes to do
7 nothing about the energy costs. Zero.
8 The other thing that's completely
9 ignored is Medicaid. We spend $49 billion a year
10 in this state on Medicaid. You've got the
11 Comptroller saying you've got a Medicaid fraud
12 problem. There are some estimates that have been
13 done on the outside that say that that number is
14 $20 billion a year in Medicaid fraud.
15 Nothing in your proposal to do that.
16 If we fixed even a fraction of the Medicaid fraud
17 and you did something about energy, those are two
18 areas that you would make affordability a reality
19 for New York. Because I'm not sure this body
20 should use language if you don't know the
21 definitions of the words.
22 I'll be voting no.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
24 Stec to be recorded in the negative.
25 Senator Weber to explain his vote on
1374
1 the resolution.
2 SENATOR WEBER: Thank you,
3 Mr. President.
4 You know, every budget year we start
5 off in this chamber talking about affordability,
6 saying we need to make New York State more
7 affordable. And after every budget the last
8 number of years, we said we addressed New York
9 State's affordability. And yet here we are.
10 Now, Mr. President, I think I might
11 be a couple of years older than you. But, you
12 know, when I see bloated budgets it always
13 reminds me of that Wendy's commercial from the
14 early 1980s, "Where's the Beef"?
15 We found the beef. It's $16 billion
16 more than last year's -- the current year's
17 fiscal budget. That's where the beef is.
18 This budget raises taxes by $6
19 billion. Now, I thought we were going to deal
20 with the tax issue, give serious middle-class tax
21 cuts. Maybe it's on a page that I didn't get.
22 But, you know, this budget is not
23 giving people the reasons to stay in this state.
24 You talk about college-age kids like my daughter,
25 talk about younger generations of my kids in
1375
1 high school, you talk about retirees. What in
2 this budget document is going to give them
3 reasons to stay? It's not. And it just becomes
4 more and more unaffordable.
5 We had an opportunity to deal with
6 utility relief. It's not in here. And
7 unfortunately people, as we heard earlier, are
8 falling more and more behind on their utility
9 bills without some of the changes that are going
10 to happen.
11 So, you know, it's unfortunate, it's
12 a missed opportunity. I have the same hope that
13 we'll get this budget done on April 1st, so we
14 have a couple of weeks to get this fixed. But
15 we've really got to do a better job than this.
16 I'll be voting no on this
17 resolution, and I encourage my colleagues to do
18 the same.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
20 Weber to be recorded in the negative.
21 Senator Stavisky to explain her vote
22 on the resolution.
23 SENATOR STAVISKY: Thank you,
24 Mr. President.
25 I'd like to remind my colleagues on
1376
1 the other side of the aisle that if you vote no
2 on this budget, you are voting against a number
3 of important issues.
4 For one thing, you are voting
5 against the construction money, the capital
6 budget for SUNY and CUNY. Desperately needed.
7 You are voting against SUNY and CUNY Reconnect,
8 which provides a wonderful program of free
9 tuition for people between the ages of 25 and 55
10 in high-need areas of study.
11 And you are voting against the no
12 tuition increase that we imposed when we took the
13 Majority in 2019. There has not been an increase
14 in tuition for your constituents since then, when
15 in the past there was -- and when you controlled
16 this chamber, there was a $200 increase every
17 single year. And it was borne by your
18 constituents.
19 I proudly vote aye.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
21 Stavisky to be recorded in the affirmative.
22 Senator Walczyk to explain his vote.
23 SENATOR WALCZYK: Thank you,
24 Mr. President.
25 You can't spend your way to solve
1377
1 the problem of affordability. If you could,
2 New York State would already be the most
3 affordable state in the union. And you know
4 that.
5 You've proposed a $16 billion
6 increase over last year's budget just in your
7 one-house budget resolution. That accounts to
8 11 percent in increased state spending over last
9 year. People's salaries haven't gone up
10 11 percent. Their wages haven't gone up
11 11 percent.
12 You've included $500 million in new
13 funding for New York City public housing and
14 $500 million in new funding for New York City
15 homelessness.
16 I was looking at the school aid,
17 expecting that you would invest in our next
18 generation. I saw $285.3 million over what the
19 Governor proposed in Foundation Aid. My school
20 districts are hurting with energy costs. They're
21 concerned about the e-bus mandate. But I didn't
22 see anything repealing that in your budget
23 resolution.
24 Their health insurance costs have
25 skyrocketed, and they've got a lot of concerns
1378
1 about special education costs in their schools.
2 And yet for hold-harmless schools in the State of
3 New York -- and if you don't know, that's
4 two-thirds of the schools in the State of
5 New York -- you're proposing a 2 percent increase
6 in Foundation Aid. While you do an 11 percent
7 increase in overall state spending. So you've
8 showed me where your priorities are.
9 This falls onto property taxpayers,
10 because school districts are going to have to go
11 out -- unless they're cutting teachers from their
12 school district, they're going to have to go out
13 to the property taxpayers and ask them to pay a
14 lot more. And it hurts our youth. So I'd ask
15 you to consider that as you go on in budget
16 negotiations.
17 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
18 you, Senator --
19 SENATOR WALCZYK: I'm not voting on
20 a budget resolution today that's going to become
21 law. This is your answer --
22 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
23 you, Senator Walczyk, your two minutes is up.
24 To be recorded in the negative.
25 Senator Kavanagh to explain his
1379
1 vote.
2 SENATOR KAVANAGH: Thank you,
3 Mr. President. I'm very proud to support this
4 resolution today.
5 We've had a lot of discussion today
6 on the clean energy transition that we are
7 investing in. I'm very proud that we're doing a
8 billion dollars for Sustainable Futures and
9 thermal energy networks and the EmPower program
10 and some others.
11 I want to just highlight a few of
12 the housing aspects of the budget, as the chair.
13 This proposal includes $3 billion in
14 new operating and capital subsidies for housing.
15 That includes really large investments in our
16 public housing both in New York City and
17 throughout the state, $100 million to support our
18 Mitchell-Lama developments, and numerous other
19 programs that this house has championed,
20 including block-by-block infill programs that are
21 building housing in all of our communities
22 throughout the state, and the Small Rental
23 Development Initiative, which is working in
24 smaller towns and villages in our rural
25 communities.
1380
1 There's also a very large investment
2 that will be facilitated by this budget in the
3 capital needs of both co-ops and condo buildings
4 and rental buildings in New York by expanding and
5 reforming the J-51 tax abatement program. Our
6 proposal today is significantly more generous to
7 the property owners than the Executive proposal,
8 and I'm sure that's something that we'll be
9 negotiating.
10 We also recognize that people need
11 services to keep them in their homes. We are
12 investing $40 million in the Homeowner Protection
13 Program and $60 million for tenants who are
14 facing eviction. We're investing $30 million in
15 our Neighborhood and Rural Preservation Programs.
16 And finally, a big continued focus
17 on rental assistance here: $250 million for the
18 Housing Access Voucher Program, which has been
19 successfully launched in the last couple of
20 weeks, and a separate program to pay the rent
21 when people are facing eviction. And the
22 eviction rates in a lot of our communities are
23 exceeding 10 percent. That is a program that we
24 launched last year and has already kept almost
25 1600 households in their homes.
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1 With that, and time is short, I will
2 wrap up today just to say thank you for your --
3 for everyone's support for this, and I look
4 forward to continuing negotiations.
5 And I vote aye.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Thank
7 you. Senator Kavanagh to be recorded in the
8 affirmative.
9 Senator Zellner to explain his vote
10 on the resolution, two minutes and one second for
11 your birthday.
12 (Laughter.)
13 SENATOR ZELLNER: Thank you,
14 Mr. President.
15 I just got here, not 2019, but right
16 now New York State is under attack from the
17 federal government. A trillion and a half
18 dollars cut across this country for healthcare.
19 Millions cut from subsidies in our own state that
20 help our most vulnerable who need food subsidies.
21 And trillions taken from New Yorkers through
22 illegal tariffs.
23 So we have a job to do here, I
24 guess, and it's to help maintain the services and
25 programs that make this the Empire State and to
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1 help take care of the most vulnerable that the
2 federal government seems to have abandoned.
3 And I think this budget does that,
4 so I vote aye.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
6 Zellner to be recorded in the affirmative.
7 Senator Borrello to explain his
8 vote.
9 SENATOR BORRELLO: Thank you,
10 Mr. President.
11 You know, while this debate was
12 going on I actually got a text from a friend of
13 mine, Tom Daniels, who owns Tom's Family
14 Restaurant in my town, a great place to get a
15 meal at a really low price.
16 His -- he sent me a copy of his
17 electric -- his utility bill, $3,891, which is
18 almost double what it was last month.
19 Now, I heard a lot of excuses as to
20 why this is happening in New York. But there was
21 a great article actually in Syracuse.com, believe
22 it or not, which I consider to be a pretty
23 left-leaning publication, that says that this is
24 really a uniquely New York problem. From 2021 to
25 2024, when almost every other state's utilities
1383
1 were dropping, New York's were increasing.
2 And why are we having the problems
3 we're having? Because we don't have enough
4 baseload power. We don't have baseload power
5 because you've told the power companies not to
6 invest here. You said by 2040, that's it. Who's
7 going to invest billions of dollars to modernize
8 equipment when you're saying they're going to be
9 obsolete in 2040?
10 This is a uniquely New York problem,
11 and we've done nothing about energy prices in
12 this budget.
13 Another issue, Medicaid. You all
14 want to blame the federal government. We have
15 billions upon billions of dollars of Medicaid
16 fraud, waste and abuse that has not been
17 addressed. And the Medicaid Inspector General?
18 He's kind of like the Maytag repairman: Not
19 doing much.
20 If you fix the fraud, a fraction of
21 it, if you fixed a fraction of the fraud, we
22 could stop everything that we've lost from the
23 federal government impacting any single
24 New Yorker. But you won't. Why? Because too
25 many people are profiting off of that fraud.
1384
1 That's the problem.
2 This budget itself is fraudulent,
3 and I'll be voting no on this resolution.
4 Thank you.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
6 Borrello to be recorded in the negative.
7 Senator Skoufis to explain his vote.
8 SENATOR SKOUFIS: Thank you very
9 much, Mr. President.
10 I certainly understand the loyal
11 opposition's job is to identify and raise
12 concerns and criticize, even when quite frankly
13 sometimes there isn't anything to actually
14 criticize on the merits.
15 I find it strange that there is this
16 equating of spending more money with
17 unaffordability. And so perhaps, you know, there
18 are some colleagues here who when they go home
19 and they criticize additional spending, go talk
20 to the young family who has a 4-year-old who just
21 saved $15,000 because we're increasing our
22 investment, our spending, in universal pre-K.
23 Go talk to a young family who has a
24 zero-to-3-year-old who's going to be part of the
25 childcare expansion -- and by the way, we have to
1385
1 do a lot more outside of New York City. But talk
2 to one of those families who's going to save 20,
3 $25,000 from their household budget thanks to the
4 investments that we are making.
5 We've heard my colleague
6 Senator Kavanagh talk about various programs,
7 including an expansion of the Housing Access
8 Voucher Program. Talk to one of those families
9 who's going to save tens of thousands of dollars
10 because of the investments that we are making.
11 And yes, the Governor came out with
12 a 1 percent baseline in Foundation Aid. We're
13 doubling that. Could we do more? Yeah, sure, I
14 guess if we're sort of, you know, pretending in
15 terms of putting together our own budgets and,
16 you know, living in a fantasy land, it could be
17 10 percent or 20 percent or 50 percent.
18 But the simple matter of fact is we
19 doubled what the Governor proposed, and that is a
20 savings, would be a savings to property taxpayers
21 who don't have to backfill that hole, that would
22 be left with only a 1 percent baseline in
23 Foundation Aid.
24 And so for all these reasons and
25 many more, I'm proud of the investments that we
1386
1 make. These are investments in affordability.
2 Many of these programs bring down costs for our
3 families. And for those reasons, I vote yes.
4 Thank you, Mr. President.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
6 Skoufis to be recorded in the affirmative.
7 Senator Krueger to explain her vote
8 on the resolution.
9 SENATOR KRUEGER: Thank you so
10 much.
11 First off, I want to thank all my
12 colleagues for their participation. I want to
13 associate myself with pretty much everything this
14 side of the aisle said today.
15 But I want to highlight my point.
16 People are talking about affordability and fraud.
17 Those are important issues. We're looking at it
18 the wrong way, though. Because I lived through
19 all the years of Republican majority rule where
20 everyone was obsessed about Medicaid fraud and
21 they kept saying, all these people are illegally
22 using Medicaid.
23 So what did we do? We did a bunch
24 of Medicaid fraud reform. Except nobody noticed
25 Medicaid fraud is the medical institutions, not
1387
1 individuals signing up for extra healthcare.
2 It's the medical institutions.
3 So please be aware if we're going to
4 go after Medicaid fraud, we're going after our
5 hospitals, our nursing homes, our doctors, all of
6 our healthcare providers. That's where Medicaid
7 fraud takes place.
8 And I'll be damned if I'm going to
9 defend them. I don't want anybody to go through
10 fraud. I don't want to have to pay for fraud.
11 Car insurance. We had a hearing.
12 We learned that the car insurance companies are
13 claiming they're on the verge of bankruptcy when
14 they're having some of the largest revenues in
15 the history of insurance. There's some kind of
16 fraud here, but it's not the occasional fake
17 lawsuit, which then doesn't get through the
18 courts anyway so isn't really the cause of the
19 skyrocketing insurance. We have too much fraud.
20 And then we've all been really busy,
21 but some of my colleagues had a hearing this week
22 on white-collar fraud. Do you know that
23 according to the federal government -- before
24 this president -- it's the number-one cost driver
25 for everyone in this country. Over a
1388
1 trillion dollars a year of corporate fraud.
2 With a whole series of federal
3 agencies who were supposedly going after it.
4 Guess what? It's no longer in their job
5 descriptions a year later. We're not even trying
6 to go after fraud.
7 So you want to deal with
8 affordability? Go after corporate fraud.
9 And then last night, by accident I
10 was reading about that the IRS, in the last year,
11 has basically ended any investigations of the
12 ultrawealthy and corporate fraud in not paying
13 their taxes. I'm always saying it here: If they
14 don't pay their taxes, whoever they are, we pay
15 their taxes.
16 So you want to do something about
17 tax rates? Please. Let's do something about
18 people committing fraud, corporate fraud not
19 paying their taxes. It's ridiculous.
20 And finally, just because I've been
21 here forever, I remember all the years of
22 Republican control where everybody always talked
23 about we're not raising taxes. So there's two
24 models. There is borrow-and-spend. That was the
25 Republican model. Kept borrowing and
1389
1 skyrocketing long-term costs of the state for the
2 next generation and the next generation.
3 Or tax-and-spend. Personally, I
4 want to stand here and be able to justify why we
5 do sometimes have to tax people who we're taxing,
6 but then be able to say we're not just kicking
7 the can down the road for the next generations to
8 have to pay what we spend.
9 So I proudly vote yes today.
10 Thank you, Mr. President.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Senator
12 Krueger to be recorded in the affirmative.
13 Majority Leader Andrea
14 Stewart-Cousins to close.
15 SENATOR STEWART-COUSINS: Thank you
16 so much, Mr. President.
17 And of course before I begin I want
18 to thank my deputy leader, Senator Mike Gianaris,
19 for once again helping guide through the debates
20 of the day.
21 I also want to thank his
22 counterpart -- is this your birthday, too? Ah,
23 Happy Birthday. This is probably not your
24 birthday present as --
25 (Laughter.)
1390
1 SENATOR STEWART-COUSINS: But we're
2 going to get out early, so you're okay.
3 So thank you, Senator Lanza.
4 And of course to the Minority
5 Leader, Bob Ortt and to the ranker, Tom O'Mara.
6 And of course special
7 acknowledgement to the wonderful Senator Krueger,
8 who again -- countless hours spent on trying to
9 get through what we know is only the beginning
10 of, you know, one of the most important things we
11 do here.
12 I also want to thank Governor Hochul
13 and Speaker Heastie for our year-round
14 partnership. And again, I'm always grateful that
15 we are collectively rowing in the same direction.
16 I want to offer my deep gratitude to
17 our staffs on both sides of the aisle. Because,
18 you know, none of this is really easy. But I
19 particularly want to thank my senior staff and
20 their crew, starting with Jonathan Lang -- where
21 are you, Jonathan? Back there somewhere, okay --
22 the secretary of the Majority Counsel and
23 Program, Dorothy Powell, counsel. Chris Friend,
24 brand-new Finance Secretary. Did a great job for
25 your first time out. Of course Mike Murphy, our
1391
1 communications director. Emily Bruggeman, deputy
2 director of intergovernmental affairs. And all
3 the staff members whose hard work and dedication
4 made our one-house possible.
5 So let's give them applause.
6 (Applause.)
7 SENATOR STEWART-COUSINS: Thank you
8 so much. Thank you.
9 And of course I want to thank my
10 amazing Senate Majority Conference, who have
11 spent untold hours not only in hearings but, you
12 know, on Zooms. And thank you always for your
13 invaluable input -- I know I have to look back
14 here, and there -- for your invaluable input and
15 for your constant advocacy, not only on behalf of
16 your own districts but on behalf of all the
17 people of New York State.
18 Today we're advancing a one-house
19 budget resolution that defends our values, lowers
20 costs for families across multiple sectors, and
21 delivers for all New Yorkers across this state.
22 Families are facing high costs.
23 Municipalities are being asked to do more with
24 less. And, once again, we are seeing harmful
25 actions out of Washington that threaten essential
1392
1 programs people rely on every day.
2 We've seen cuts to healthcare, to
3 food assistance, to public benefits and other
4 basic supports that help keep families afloat.
5 New Yorkers are under pressure, and I hear from
6 constituents every day in the same way you do
7 about the stresses they feel in order to keep
8 their lights on and to keep food on the table.
9 I talk to young people who are
10 uncertain about their job prospects, and they're
11 worried about whether they can pursue higher
12 education.
13 Every year throughout this process,
14 I say and we say the budgets are about our
15 priorities. And this fiscally responsible and
16 balanced budget resolution reflects our
17 priorities. It protects essential services. It
18 supports local communities. It invests in
19 long-term economic opportunity. And it does ask
20 those who can most afford it to contribute more
21 so we can continue meeting the needs of working
22 people across this state.
23 Our responsible revenue measures
24 ensure the wealthiest individuals, large
25 corporations and luxury industries pay their fair
1393
1 share. At a time when federal threats and
2 economic uncertainty are putting enormous
3 pressure on our state and our local governments,
4 we're taking responsible action to generate
5 sustainable revenue so municipalities can
6 continue delivering vital services and families
7 can get the support they need.
8 We're also continuing our
9 affordability agenda with targeted investments
10 that help New Yorkers lower everyday costs. That
11 includes working towards universal childcare,
12 which you heard over and over again today.
13 Expanding access across the entire
14 state, supporting the childcare workforce with a
15 $500 million investment, beginning implementation
16 of 2-Care seats in New York City, and helping
17 ensure that families can actually access the care
18 they need.
19 We're building on the work we've
20 already done to lower energy costs, strengthening
21 energy affordability. New Yorkers have long been
22 burdened by some of the highest utility rates in
23 the country, with little to no transparency about
24 how these rates are determined.
25 And this cold winter has only
1394
1 exacerbated the strain these high bills place on
2 businesses, yes, and on families struggling to
3 keep their heat on. This budget invests hundreds
4 of millions of dollars in energy affordability
5 and advances utility reforms to provide greater
6 transparency, greater accountability, and
7 fairness for ratepayers.
8 New Yorkers deserve utility bills
9 they can understand, a process they can trust,
10 and a government that is willing to stand up for
11 them when costs go too high.
12 We also continue our strong
13 commitment to education and youth opportunity
14 with greater investments into our school
15 districts to provide the proper resources so that
16 every child, regardless of their zip code, has
17 the opportunity to learn, to grow, and to
18 succeed -- not just during the school day, but
19 beyond it.
20 We support expanding the success of
21 universal school meals by growing the
22 Farm-to-School program to include breakfast and
23 snacks.
24 We're strengthening Foundation Aid
25 with additional investments for high-needs
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1 students, increasing Transportation Aid,
2 supporting universal pre-K, investing in
3 community schools, after-school programming,
4 tutoring, libraries, civic education, youth
5 employment and, yes, youth sports.
6 We're also expanding higher
7 education opportunities. This budget increases
8 financial aid for students, supports a workforce
9 training program, invests in SUNY, CUNY and
10 community colleges. We're providing millions in
11 tuition assistance, making it easier for our
12 students to access this crucial help.
13 We're expanding nursing programs
14 across at state, supporting a bilingual educator
15 pipeline. Higher education remains one of the
16 clearest pathways to opportunity, and we must
17 keep this path open and affordable even as the
18 federal government cuts down on your opportunity
19 to borrow so that you can indeed contribute.
20 On healthcare, this budget sends a
21 clear message: New York will protect care,
22 protect coverage, and protect people. At a time
23 when federal actions threaten to destabilize
24 healthcare access, we're directing the Department
25 of Health to minimize coverage losses while
1396
1 strengthening support for financially distressed
2 and rural hospitals, nursing homes, health
3 centers, and long-term-care providers.
4 It also advances lower prescription
5 drug costs. And we're providing funding, yes,
6 for gender-affirming care in the wake of the
7 federal administration's attack on healthcare for
8 the LGBTQ+ communities.
9 We continue major investments in
10 reproductive freedom and maternal health.
11 New York will remain a firewall for reproductive
12 freedom and a state that continues to confront
13 maternal health disparities head-on.
14 We're also strengthening
15 mental health and behavioral health services,
16 because we know it all matters.
17 We're also standing with our
18 brothers and sisters in labor by strengthening
19 labor protections, cracking down on wage theft.
20 And we remain committed as a conference to
21 reforming Tier 6 and improving benefits so that a
22 career in public service can continue to be a
23 pathway to stability, security, and dignified
24 retirement.
25 This budget restores and increases
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1 arts funding, supports tourism and downtown
2 revitalization. It redesigns AIM, which we have
3 increased over the past few years, so it works
4 better for our municipalities.
5 On housing, the Senate continues to
6 take decisive action to expand affordable
7 housing, prevent homelessness, protect homeowners
8 and tenants. We're investing in rental
9 assistance, public housing, and home ownership
10 opportunities through the New York First Home
11 Savings Program, while strengthening support for
12 NYCHA, Mitchell-Lama preservation, and raising
13 the SCRIE and DRIE thresholds.
14 We continue to lead on climate
15 resilience and clean water. And under the belief
16 that investments in renewable energy will
17 continue to lower energy costs for New Yorkers,
18 this budget restores a billion dollars for the
19 Sustainable Futures Program, increases the
20 Environmental Protection Fund, increases clean
21 water funding to work towards lead pipe
22 remediation, private well testing, and drinking
23 water grants.
24 We invest in our local
25 infrastructure, expand transit safety and
1398
1 affordability. This budget builds on our past
2 historic investment in CHIPS funding, which as
3 you know continues to support our roads and
4 infrastructure. And we provide resources to our
5 crucial public transit systems in New York City
6 and across the state.
7 We're continuing to value our
8 New York farms and the agriculture industry that
9 sustains our state's economy. We know that
10 without farmers we won't have food on our tables.
11 We're making targeted investments in
12 safer communities, including increased funding
13 for successful community violence prevention
14 programs like SNUG, and providing help for our
15 local law enforcement and first responders.
16 We're strengthening human rights and
17 justice by investing in legal services, including
18 additional funding for the Office of New
19 Americans. And we remain committed to achieving
20 the goals of New York For All, with our partners,
21 to advance solutions that protect immigrant
22 families and ensure that every community in our
23 state is treated with respect.
24 As we progress through this budget
25 process, I welcome the challenging yet necessary
1399
1 conversations and negotiations with the Executive
2 and with the Assembly. The Senate Democratic
3 Majority remains united in our commitment to
4 ensuring New York remains an affordable,
5 equitable, and resilient place to live.
6 And I look forward -- as I'm sure
7 you all do -- to the work ahead as we continue
8 negotiating a final budget that ultimately
9 delivers for the people of New York State.
10 So thank you for your work. And of
11 course we have only just begun. And just for
12 everybody, this is the end of the beginning.
13 Monday will be the beginning of the middle.
14 (Laughter.)
15 SENATOR STEWART-COUSINS: Thank you
16 very much, Mr. President. Thank you.
17 (Applause.)
18 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: Majority
19 Leader Stewart-Cousins to be recorded in the
20 affirmative.
21 Announce the results.
22 THE SECRETARY: In relation to the
23 resolution, those voting in the negative are
24 Senators Ashby, Borrello, Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick,
25 Chan, Gallivan, Griffo, Helming, Lanza, Martins,
1400
1 Mattera, Murray, Oberacker, O'Mara, Ortt,
2 Palumbo, Rhoads, Rolison, Stec, Tedisco, Walczyk,
3 Weber and Weik.
4 Ayes, 38. Nays, 22.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
6 resolution is adopted.
7 Senator Gianaris.
8 SENATOR GIANARIS: Mr. President,
9 returning to motions for a moment, on behalf of
10 Senator Jackson, on page 22, I offer the
11 following amendments to Calendar 443, Senate
12 Print 5183, and ask that said bill retain its
13 place on the Third Reading Calendar.
14 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: The
15 amendments are received, and the bill will retain
16 its place on the Third Reading Calendar.
17 Senator Gianaris.
18 SENATOR GIANARIS: Is there any
19 further business at the desk?
20 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: There is
21 no further business at the desk.
22 SENATOR GIANARIS: We will be back
23 here on Monday, March 16th, at 3:00 p.m.
24 I move to adjourn until then, with
25 the intervening days being legislative days.
1401
1 ACTING PRESIDENT COONEY: On
2 motion, the Senate stands adjourned until Monday,
3 March 16th, at 3:00 p.m., with the intervening
4 days being legislative days.
5 (Whereupon, at 1:59 p.m., the Senate
6 adjourned.)
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